Underground Superstars
by Zero Harmony
Summary: What started as simply being rock stars quickly dragged Sonic and his siblings into a chaos of revolutions and ancient secrets. AU of Sonic Underground. T for violence and light crassness. No serious shipping. DEAD. Abridged ending only.
1. Act 1 Genisis: Prologue

**Act 1: Genesis**

_As I run through tunnels old,_

_I remember all the warriors bold,_

_Who fell trying to stop your dark regime._

_Fifteen years you have ruled,_

_And in this tough life they've been schooled,_

_They have come to stop your evil reign!_

_Do You remember the three, the ultimate epitome_

_Of all that is against what you stand for._

_One who is free as wind,_

_Raised by a thief, the first's green twin,_

_And the one who tries to keep them safe._

_One of those you thought was gone,_

_Is returning to this war you won,_

_And this time, he knows he cannot lose. _

_Do You remember the three, the ultimate epitome,_

_Of all that is against what you stand for._

_Lovesick child will start this fight,_

_And beaten kit will soon take flight, _

_These and more will join the dark crusade._

_Death to those that chase them all,_

_Indifference, it shall find your fault,_

_And the three shall triumph over all._

_Do You remember the three, the ultimate epitome,_

_Of all that is against what you stand for._

_Chaos falls upon the land,_

_Felled by one with only hands,_

_Show them all, the pow'r of destiny._

_And then the fourth will come,_

_The mother of the other three,_

_For her husband's death you'll dearly pay!_

_Do You remember the three, the ultimate epitome,_

_Of all that is against what you stand for._

_Now You'll remember the three,_

_And You'll remember the fourth;_

_Now You'll remember it all._

The space was dark, illuminated only by a single candle. The man who hadn't been singing stood up and brushed off his red coat, seemingly undisturbed by the strange song.

"Very well then." The man said. "I understand what I must do." He turned and left the space, leaving the other man in the candlelight.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Miss Sonia, a person at the door for you." The butler said. The pink hedgehog turned from the piano she was playing. She was the only hedgehog in the household, adopted under circumstances her human foster mother told her were "best left unexplored."

"It is a hedgehog boy, a bit of a ruffian, but he seemed decent enough to talk." The butler continued. Sonia got out of the stool and followed the butler down hallways lined with paintings of long dead humans wearing swords they probably never used. When she got to the one entranceway to the Windemere estate, the butler went off to do more important work. Doors made of rare hyper-steel clashed with soft yellow painted walls, but were necessary for safety. The entire floor below was filled with concrete, except for the shaft by which the elevator came up. The doors slid open to reveal the visitor; a green hedgehog boy about as old as herself. Looking up he whistled softly.

"Wooo. Nice deal ya' got here. Pardon my manners. Manic, apprentice to master Ferrel, at your service." He punctuated the remark with a deep bow and a waving of a worn, second hand beret he had been wearing over his untidy head-spikes. She noticed that his right ear was pierced by two golden loops. He wore a brown vest over his otherwise bare chest, and shorts a size to small for him were surrounded by a faded pink fanny pack.

"Hello." Sonia said, giving a small curtsy. "How can I help you?"

"Well," he began rubbing his head-spikes. "dang this'll come out wrong. I've got up some proof you're my sister."

Sonia tried to not show her disappointment. Her mother had warned her about people who would say these kinds of things so they could get money and food.

"I… I'm sorry, but you must be mistaken." She said, shaking her head. As she began to close the door and walk away, she heard Manic call after her,

"Wait, ya' think this is 'bout money don't you. Well, I'm not gunning to be one o' you fat donk-"his voice was cut off abruptly by the doors closing.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic cursed his luck and fate in general as the elevator slid down a genteel shaft. He really should have known that would happen, but he had at least hoped her interest would have been piqued long enough to hear some of the evidence. Opening his pack, he pulled out a green jewel that was attached to a gold chain. On it were etched the letters: _M.N._ Ironically his first name did start with "M", but Ferrel might have based it off the carving. He hadn't worn it to the meeting, because any aristocrat's daughter would assume he had stolen such an expensive looking item. He pulled it over his head. If Ferrel was going to force him to dwell in the past he might as well go all out. He would have to try option B.

OOOOOOOOOO

A blue hedgehog in a grey shirt and denim shorts bent down, right hand barely touching the ground, left out behind him. With a grunt he pushed of, running as fast as he could past the bland brick townhouses, his swept back head-spikes flailing behind him. He skidded to a miniscule pause at the end of the street to turn, and began running the other way. Run, skid, turn. Run, skid, turn. A green hedgehog kid about as old as he was walked up and stood watching for no less than a minute.

"Watch ya' doing?" he called out.

"Running." The blue hedgehog replied. He skidded to a halt in front of the green one. "Name's Sonic. The hedgehog, not the famous bard."

"Oh no, you look fairly human to me. I'm Manic. Don't ask." They stared for a few seconds before Manic continued. "Sooo I'm pretty sure we're brothers 'cause of what my master told me 'bout where he found me, the night of the revolution. You probably have one of these," Manic said, waving his green pendant. The blue hedgehog looked at it for a few second before admitting.

"I do." Sonic nodded in confusion, pulling a blue one from under his shirt. "And I am adopted, but Uncle Chuck wouldn't say when, so I guess it makes sense." They stared some more.

"So, what da ya wanna do now?"

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonia sat beside her foster mother, Nalsia Windemere, in the horseless carriage as it went down the streets of Mobius City. Sonia was dressed in her finest clothes, a sparkling red dress that matched her gold chained earrings, alongside her pearl bracelets. Her mother was dressed in swathes of white and blue in a looser fit, not being as slight of frame.

"Mother," she began. "Was I the only child you found that night?" The question had been bothering Sonia since the punk had shown up at the door earlier that day. Her mother bit her lip, pondering how to answer.

"No. There were two boys. One blue and one green."

"Why didn't you take them too?" Sonia asked. Nalsia sighed.

"I didn't _want _sons. I know I should have but… you'll understand when you're older. And it was the night of the revolution. Anyone crazy enough to leave their children outside in that… I didn't want too much suspicion from any regime that came out of it."

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic and Manic strolled through the side streets and alleyways of Mobius City, talking about their life as they walked along.

"Here. Here's a good place to perform for money." Sonic would say on a street corner, while Manic might point at a Citizen's Service Cafeteria and say.

"They never get a lot of people; lots of food in their dumpsters." They were turning into an old side street while discussing the merits of old jazz when they met an unruly bunch of teens, some human, most hedgehog, dressed in worn clothes with a spot of bright purple on them somewhere, particularly a girl hedgehog who had purple fur naturally, and didn't wear anything of a different color.

"Hey, Manic." She said off-handedly, inspecting a knock-off amethyst ring on her finger.

"You two know each other?" Sonic asked.

"Oh yes, me and him, we go way back." She said turning to them. "I'm always trying to give him presents, like knives and such, but he never seems to want them." Various kids were beginning to reach into pocket or flicking out switch-blades.

"You're gang filth!" Sonic exclaimed. The girl's eyes narrowed. Manic turned, smiling broadly, and said through his teeth.

"Run, ya' big dumby."

"Kill Him!" the girl yelled, stopping briefly by Manic to add, "We'll get you later." Sonic was already running and screaming his head off.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Sonia, I'd like you to meet this gentleman. His name's Richard Bartleby. His parents and I go far back."

"A pleasure to meet you." Bartleby said bowing. He was a hedgehog also, with a yellow fur from some source, and he was taller than normal, probably three decimeters more at least. "I've heard a lot about you. Shall we dance?"

"Sure." Sonia said giving him his hand. They went off from Nalsia, twirling in a similar monotony as the rest of the hall.

"Parties." Bartleby said. "Never saw the point of them. Money wasn't made by using it." Sonia nodded in agreement. Her mother often took her to these soirées, trying to make her talk to other young men. It was a bit hard since most of the aristocracy was human.

"So, what do you like to do?' she asked him.

"Er… well… hunt. Oh, don't look at me like that. The food in Mobius these days is horrid, and I try to use everything I get. What do you do?"

"Piano mostly, when I'm not being tutored." They danced on through the dull, classic music, occasionally lessened by a decades old jazz song. Neither of them was very good at it, and Bartleby eventually excused himself. He went over to a refreshment table while Sonia wandered off, waiting until Nalsia came up to him.

"What are your thoughts?" she asked.

"She's a bit young, maybe?" Bartleby replied, sipping from a glass of champagne.

"Oh, it wouldn't happen anytime soon. We'd wait until she's ready."

"And there's the age difference. I'm twenty and she's, what, fifteen? Isn't that just a little wrong?"

"Look, your parents and I agreed this is best."

"That doesn't help your case. They're just a bunch of old fogeys partying in Southern Neworld like they're young. It's disturbing just thinking about it." Bartleby put the glass down as he finished it. "Sonia will find out eventually, and she won't be happy. She's a nice girl now, but pretty soon she'll find _something_ to rub against, and then it will be bizarre piercings and loud rock all day long. I know I went through that until I took up hunting."

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic dared to look behind him as he ran through the streets. He had lost his initial burst of speed, and the gangsters were managing to keep up with him, mostly by knowing little shortcuts. He turned his head in time to stop himself before colliding with a pink hedgehog standing in the streets. Stopping himself a foot short of her face He got out:

"Love to chat but I'm gonna' die" Before he ran off. The hedgehog, Amy Rose, stared at his back shrinking in the distance before going the other way, oblivious to the mob of angry gangsters that came around the turn a second later. _He's kind of cute_ floated into her mind for a brief second before more practical thoughts filled it up again.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic hit the rooftop with a soft _thud_. Jumping between rooftops in Mobius City was pretty easy because the townhouses were built so close together. It was crossing streets that really slowed you down, because you had to go down and up two different fire escapes. Really impractical when someone was chasing you, or vice versa. Manic leapt another gap, keeping an eye pealed for Sonic. _He's fast._ Manic commented to himself again. _He'd probably win any footrace you could challenge him to._ This didn't make Manic's time any easier, because he was probably on the other side of Mobius City's river bynow_._ As he ran for the next jump, somebody's leg tripped him. He turned as soon as he hit the ground, ignoring his pain to see his attacker. It was the purple hedgehog from earlier.

"Didn't ya miss me, love?" She said casually.

"Look, Lisa, I'm kinda' in a hurry here, so could you just skip to killing me?"

"Sure." She shrugged, reaching into her pocket. She ruffled her hand, looking down in confusion, and then looked up to glower at Manic, who proudly waved a purple-handled knife in one hand.

"Well, time to go. Ah, there's my brother." He said leaning over the side of the roof. All jovialness dropped from his voice in a second. "No. He wouldn't." Lisa went over to confirm what that meant.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic was tired, and his side was killing him, but he had seen the purple metal of a cop-bot going around the corner, and if he could reach it he'd be safe. No gang of any size could take on a squadron of the Robotnik's protectors. He was so close, so close… a person's leg made him trip and sprawl on the hard asphalt. He twisted around to defend himself, but a voice interjected:

"They're gone."

"Manic, what'd you do that for?"

"'Cause you, _idiot_ that you are, was about to set ruthless machines on a bunch of kids."

"They were trying to kill me!"

"Would you return the favor?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know when the Robotnik takes us 'unregistered' folks off the street and puts into his system? We like to call that 'roboticizing' 'cause its like he's turning us into robots." Manic yelled the last part for emphasis, before dropping his voice again. "Can ya' imagine that, after spending your entire life doing what ya' want and having to make your own decisions? And then having nothing? I hear it drives some kids mad."

"It's to help…"

"That's propaganda. Everyone uses it." A shared silence.

"Lets just go home." Sonic finally said. "By the way, you mentioned being an apprentice. In what exactly?"

"Oh… that's best explained later."

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic entered a run down house, little more than a stable pile of bricks. Something large swept past.

"Hey." It said. It was a large, greasy human, dressed in rough clothes and leaning back against a wall. "How'd it go?"

"Girl thought I was tricking her, boy believed me."

"Good luck. Oh, I got you some…"

"Drumsticks, these ones exactly." Manic said, waving the objects in his off-hand.

"Nice. Figure you could least have half your favorite instrument, seeing as ya' can't go lugging a big drum everywhere."

"Good thievings, master." Manic called as he went to an early bed.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sonic woke early at the sixth hour call, broadcast to every legal residence in Mobius, via the Robotnik's wall-viewer. He ate the mechanically prepared breakfast with Chuck, his foster father, and bid him good-bye for the day as Chuck climbed on the iron trolley for a factory in Cowford. When that was done with he got down to business. Education lasted until age fourteen, but assignment to the workforce came when you were sixteen. This meant that he could do any legal activity he wanted, but granted, there weren't many.

He mostly sat on street corners playing his guitar, saving up to rent it for another month. He used the outdated physical currency from the time of the hedgehog monarchy, fifteen years ago. Today however, he planned to rendezvous with the Manic kid he met to figure out if they were really brothers. He had gotten Chuck to admit last night that he had been found on the morning after the revolution, but the elderly hedgehog had added that it probably wouldn't mean anything in reality. Sonic had "forgotten" to tell him about Manic. It was best not to worry him.

OOOOOOOOOO

The sleek elevator came to the ground floor, letting out a hiss as the doors opened. Sonia stepped out, dressed in the least spectacular, dirtiest outfit she could find, and she still wasn't sure she'd blend in well enough. Her mother was doing something somewhere else, and Sonia had told the servants she wanted to stay in her room. She didn't worry overly much about her safety, planning to use a mix of explaining the consequences of harming her and unarmed self-defense that had been included in her tutoring.

She walked down the streets as if she had reason to be there. She was just a local girl going to her brother's, right, no need to be bothered. As she passed by a human pounding his fingers against a guitar, Sonia heard music she had never felt before, and liked it: it had fire, emotion inside. She let the sound well up inside, feeling every drop of rage and sorrow put into it, even if the message disturbed her; You killed the king, you tyrant. The moment was broken by a voice behind her.

"No, no; back, back. It'll be my head, not yours they take." It was Manic.

"Hello to you too." Sonia put out.

"This is a bad idea."

"Look," Sonia interjected. "Do you think I'm you sister or not."

"If your that naive, then no. Besides you actually need to provide the proof:" Manic pulled out from under his vest a green jewel pendant. "One of these."

"Funny seeing as you're the one who came looking for me. Besides, that would be easily made by a jeweler."

"So it isn't crushed by a sledge hammer, or melted in a furnace, or even get hot?" Sonia stared at him.

"You know this how?"

"'Cause I didn't want to do this! 'Ya got to bother 'bout your family Manic, they abandoned you after all.' Ridiculous. D-donkey didn't even take the other kid when he could" He let out a sigh of frustration. "Yeah. So I decided to find my siblings and leave it at that. Badness knows I don't want to meet the tramp who bir-" Sonia hit him once across the face, realizing what he would say. "Sorry miss genteel, but I can't think up another reason we'd be _ditched _like this. Welcome to the gritty reality."

"Why should I even trust to you?"

"You shouldn't, and that's the best I can give."

"I'm going home."

"Good idea. Then I won't get hunted down like a rat."

OOOOOOOOOO

_That was a bad idea._ Sonia thought as she tiptoed back to her room. She was left less than convinced by "Manic's" talk. It wasn't even a real name. And he probably didn't even know about what her real broth-_ers _were colored. He was just green because most hedgehogs were. Completely coincidental.

OOOOOOOOOO

_That was stupid. _Manic thought. Acting so barbed to the person he had been trying to interest would definitely work against him, but she had been acting _so_ dumb. Standing, in the middle of the street, dressed to the nine. He had probably saved her life.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Yeah, so we have a sister, I've met her twice, once today actually, and she doesn't believe me." Manic said.

"This helps us how?" Sonic asked. The two had met up by Sonic's house so they could continue their discussion about the past and the present.

"Thought you might want to know."

"How big is this family anyways?"

"Unless we were quadruplets or quintuplets before my master found us, just three."

"Right. So what are we gonna' do about…"

"Sonia's her name. Normally I'd say a big break in to find where ever her heirloom's being hid and force her to accept her past, because I know she has one. But that'd probably mess things up even more, so we'll wait."

"Big… break in. As in breaking and entering."

"oh, yeah… I _am_ apprenticed to a thief, but I'd like to state that there's worse."

"Like what?"

"Things so sundry I would not mention them for the sake of your childish innocence. Let's start a band." Manic concluded, totally changing the conversation's topic.

"Why?"

"Nothing better to do. We both like playing. Might get some cash."

"Oh. What do you play?"

"Drums, or anything like them."

"I think we'll need more people."

"Sonia'll join once she gets her act together."

"You know this how?" Manic let out a laugh.

"She's rich. They all play piano or violin."

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonia put her head down against her enormous grand piano. The entire business had just left her even more confused. She knew "Manic" couldn't possibly be her brother yet… she had seen a jewel like his before, only it had been pink, like her. Her mother had been looking at it, and put it away as soon as she saw Sonia.

"You looked trouble, dear." Apparently her mom was back. Nalsia had a hard time understanding the phrase "Doesn't want to be disturbed."

"It's nothing." Sonia mumbled lifting her head.

"Why don't you play some waltzes? That always cheers you up." Sonia nodded, and began pressing keys from memory, but something kept forcing its way in, until conceding, she played it. Perfectly pitched her fingers fell, playing the line over and over, just trying to shut out everything that kept happening to her.

"That… that's not a waltz dear."

"Waltzes were for rebels in their time." Sonia yelled over the rising music. Then a thought hit her like a brick from nowhere. Her mother had said Bartleby had heard a lot about her. Why would he care? She stopped, playing eight keys at once in a discordant mess. "It's an arranged marriage, isn't it?"

"What?"

"With the man you showed me, Bartleby. You and his parents want us to marry." Sonia's eyes were narrowing at the audacity of what her mother had done.

"Well, I didn't want it to work out like _that_. I thought if… Bartleby's a nice gentleman… What do you want?" Sonia replied without knowing it.

"To leave."

"Where are you going to go?"

"My brothers, of course."

OOOOOOOOOO

Nalsia Windemere sat blank-faced in an armchair. A dream daughter was dead, filled up with hate and cynicism in seconds. She said nothing as Sonia came into her room, opened the jewelry drawer, and pulled out a pink jewel on a gold necklace, muttering something to it before placing it over her neck. She said nothing as an alarm indicated how much monarchial coinage was pulled out from the safe. She said nothing as she was told that the entrance elevator had descended to the ground floor. She said nothing when asked if she wanted something to eat. She only fell asleep when she was too tired to stay awake.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Okay, ya' coulda' told me you had to return it."

"Well, I almost had enough money. Probably could have made it if you hadn't come along."

"You were running outside your house."

"Well, that's what I felt like doing."

"Ya' know, I wouldn't mind lending a hand."

"No."

"Just a little…"

"No. I don't want to be connected to your crimes."

"Oh, come on, it'll be fu- _Unholy… manure!_ Is that you, Sonia?"

"Yes." A girl said. Sonic turned to see his sister. She was a pink hedgehog, unsurprisingly, wearing jeans, a jean jacket, and a purple headband keeping her head-spikes vertical. Her face and hands were amazingly clean. And trailing around her neck was a gold chain, with a pink jewel on it.

"Look, I've told you once-" Manic began

"I'm not returning." The brothers stood in silence, before Sonic asked it:

"What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"It's okay…"

"I said no!" Sonic shrunk back an inch surprised at the rebuttal of him trying to help.

"Er, well then, do we all agree we're siblings?" Manic interjected. Twin answers of "Yes." came back at him. At that moment, the three gems flashed a bright light, there was the distinct sound of a bell, and twelve waste bins in various parts of the nearby city fell over simultaneously. "I think we can also agree that did not just happen."


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Um, Uncle Chuck? I'd like you to meet my sister, and she, uh, needs someplace to stay."

"Sister?" The graying hedgehog replied, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, she got taken at birth or, whenever I, uh, we were on your doorsteps, but now she can't go back to her parents and we can't really leave her on the street so…"

"She can stay in the guest room."

"Thank you." Sonia said curtsying out of habit.

OOOOOOOOOO

The next day, Sonia was surprised by the early wake up call. Six was too early to be healthy. Sonic and Chuck were nice enough to give her some of their breakfast. She didn't see the foster father off to where ever he was going, choosing instead to stare at the rectangular, silver-rimmed black square on the kitchen's wall. Sonic walked back in to find her still looking at it.

"What is this?" she asked him.

"One of the Robotnik's wall viewers. Didn't your house have one?"

"No."

"Oh, well then. This is how he distributes information to everyone, even some of those outside of Mobian lands. It gives the news of changes in work schedules and assignment, harsh weather, dangerous people, things along those lines. It sets the waking and sleeping times, and also transmits the education programs for anyone young enough."

"Is that the only thing of his you have?"

"Well, he designed the food-heater and the storage unit."

"Oh. Where does the food come from?"

"Delivered every month. Where'd you live exactly?"

"Uh, well, someplace a lot… different."

"Huh. Well, let's go meet our brother."

OOOOOOOOOO

"So, we're gonna' start a band and would like you to join." Manic said after half-hearted introductions.

"Well, I only know piano and…" Manic winked at Sonic, who glowered, before replying.

"Keyboard, then."

"What's that?"

"Like a piano, only not as ridiculously huge. We both know a good shop, and we can get Sonic a guitar while we're there."

"Um, I don't have enough to rent one again…"

"I can buy it." Sonia replied quickly.

"How?"

"Oh yeah, she's rich, as I've already mentioned." Manic explained. Sonic just looked at her bug eyed.

"My mother- _foster_ mother is a noble in the aristocracy."

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Because…"

"You thought he would be both jealous of your vast wealth and privilege while at the same time thinking condescendingly of you as a naïve rich kid." Manic quickly summed up. "Now can we get back to the matter at hand, please?"

OOOOOOOOOO

A little while later the three exited the music store, Sonic with an electrical guitar now owned by him in his hands, and Sonia with a new keyboard slung on her back.

"I still don't understand why the main entrance is in an alley." She was saying as they stepped into the main street.

"It's best for sales." Manic replied

"Right. What do you guys want to play first?"

"Fire-blast?" Sonic suggested.

"Why I Hate you?" Manic put in.

"Baelhauff's Fifth" Sonia suggested.

"Ode to Croatoan?" Manic said. Sonic glared at Manic's suggestion, but the green hedgehog only chuckled. "You do realize we're gonna' have to make something new. And Sonia, this is a _rock_ band."

"You could have said so."

"I'd think it'd be obvious."

"Hmph."

OOOOOOOOOO

After a week of conspicuous practice, the three were ready for their first gig. They only had to finish negotiations with the manager. It was an interesting human with black, flat top hair and grey side burns, who had an annoying habit of speaking while he smoked.

"Now, you say you only want the publicity."

"Yes." Manic said for the tenth time.

"Hm. What's the name of your band again?"

"Uh, well…" Manic signaled to have a quick moment while he joined with his sibling in a huddle to discuss options.

"I say 'Three Kids Dumped'." Manic started.

"Stone Love" Sonia replied.

"Sonic Underground." He was met with blank stares. "What, it's just as bad as what you were suggesting." A collective sigh.

"Er, actually I somewhat liked a bit of the last one." The manager put in. "How about just 'Underground'." Making an imaginary frame in the air with his hands.

"Well, that suggests a kind of… illegality." Sonia said. The manager stared at her with an expression of honest shock. Turning to Manic he suggested,

"Why do I get the feeling there's been a distinct failure in communications."

"Ah, yes, well," Manic began, facing his sibling. "This is all technically illegal, being related to such social sins as drinking, being out after dark, and having a good time, but the Robotnik probably figures he's more likely to start a revolution by enforcing this than stopping one."

"Well, if that's all settled I think we'll take the name." Sonic said, turning to the manager.

"Okay. On in fifteen minutes, play for thirty. Got it? Good."

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic looked out over the audience who were largely ignoring him. Stepping up hesitantly to the microphone, he played a single note, speaking the first words of the song, a classic:

_Some bitter darkness took your heart,_

_And made you rip our love apart,_

_And all I am left with is fields of flower_

Every word was matched by his guitar and he played the sounds in an unending stream that made a song. He could here his siblings adding their voices and interweaving their sounds. There was only a brief pause before launching into their next song.

OOOOOOOOOO

The three walked off in a daze, down to the bar where a jovial hedgehog bartender met them.

"Drinks on the house, kids! Whaddya'… how old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen since I was found." Manic finished.

"That'll be water then. Good work on your playing." As the bartender went over to a spout which looked suspiciously like that of a sink, Sonia leaned towards Manic and said,

"I'm surprised you didn't pass yourself off as sixteen."

"Nah. Ferrel let me try some once, and it was pretty bad. 'Sides, I don't want a messy headache tomorrow." The bartender came back with all three's drinks, they thanked him and headed out to find a table. The establishment was cramped, except for one table.

"Isn't it a bad sign that no one's sitting with that one person, to the point of standing at other tables?" Sonic asked.

"Hey, I'm usually one of those people myself, so he probably isn't that bad." Manic replied defensively. They sat down opposite the shunned one who was… odd, to say the least. It took them a while to realize that the red fur and longer snout marked him as an echidna, not some mutated hedgehog. They were rare in all of the Greater Island, but they were a minority that had been there since as long as anyone could remember. Manic seemed more interested in the grey camo-patterned cloak he was wearing.

"I found it on the ground." the echidna enunciated slowly, taking a hand from behind his head to drink. It wasn't hard to notice the brass knuckle on his hand. The metal wrapped around each finger, linked to the others on the side. These ones also had a pair of sharp spikes on the top, making them a nasty looking weapon.

"What's your name?" Sonic asked. The echidna grunted angrily in reply. They left him alone after that, drinking their water and listening to music. When they realized how late it was they left, while Sonia left a tip for the bartender

"What was the big deal about the cloak?" Sonia asked as they walked down Mobius City's dark streets.

"It's from the Royal Guard. They were all offed like the king and queen."

"Offed?"

"Shot, killed, _dead_. Ya' really need to learn some basic slang, girl. Anyhoo, it's not unknown to own one, but wearing it's suicide."

"*BZZZT* CURFEW VIOLATION OF FOUR HOURS AND THIRTY-SEVEN MINUTES; IT IS 22:37. *BZZZT* SUBJECTS: SONIC MAGEE, HEDGEHOG, SONIA WINDEMERE, HOUSE WINDEMERE, HEDGEHOG, *BZZZT* UNKNOWN, HEDGEHOG." Towering over them were five Mark Seven Enforcers, known by most of the public as "cop-bots". They stood two meters tall, covered in purple painted metal. Their heads were bulges on the torsos, set with red glass eyes to cover their optical sensors. Thick, rounded arms came down to wickedly curved, razor sharp claws, and built into the right arm was an assault rifle.

"Terribly sorry," Sonic began, desperately trying to legitimize his illegitimate activities. "But…"

_Crack_

At that moment, the sound of a gun firing hit Sonic and Sonia's ears for the first time as a lit-up round slammed in to the first cop-bots chest unit. It stood still for a second before toppling over to the ground. The organic beings present hit the ground as the remaining four cop-bots formed a defensive circle and pointed their gun-arms at the rooftops, where the shot had originated.

_Crack_

The next one was from somewhere else. It burst through one's head, and the machines still able to see turned in unison and fired.

_Crack_

They all missed as was apparent from the damaged one's subsequent destruction.

_Crack_

Another cop-bot fell. The last two stayed utterly still, their guns pointed at the roof tops. The three hedgehogs dared to look up from their cowering, thinking the gunfire to have stopped.

_Crack_

This one came from behind a nearby waste bin, not on the rooftops, stopping yet another cop-bot. The last bot reacted uncharacteristically quickly, and with three _cracks_ from its arm weapon the waste bin was neatly punctured. One _crack_ barely hit the cop-bot's center causing it to unbalance. Sonic, Sonia, and Manic looked at where the last shot had been fired from. Something indistinct walked out of the alleyway.

"Huh. Six shots. Think I'm losing my touch." It was the exact same echidna from the bar, made definite by the pair of brass knuckles on his hands. He was holding some sort of light assault rifle. They just stared at him. "Yeah. Shoo, before something comes to investigate."

"Why? Did you shoot them I mean? We were perfectly okay." Sonic demanded.

"Coincidence. By the way, you never saw me." He added, motioning the gun barrel slightly towards them.

"Who are you?" The echidna only turned away. "Who are you?" with a sudden movement he turned and slammed Sonic in the face, knocking him to the ground. Sonic thought he could feel blood on his snout. The echidna grabbed him by his shirt collar and pulled him close.

"Knuckles. Happy?" dropping him, the self-labeled "Knuckles" took a quick glance around, before running off into the dead of night. Manic picked Sonic up and said,

"Ya' kinda deserved that, ya' know." Sonia nodded in agreement.

OOOOOOOOOO

Deep in the former royal palace, now the Robotnik's Central Administrative Unit, below the deserted bedrooms and dining halls, or the parlor where the king had been shot in his futile resistance and the queen had fled in futility. She had fallen in the city's central river. Below all of those wasteful rooms of decadence, there sat the Lord Robotnik himself, musing over what his life meant.

He had taken the title from the name of his grandfather on his mother's side, an even greater genius than he. His bald head was fronted by a bushy handle bar mustache, all over an admittedly obese body. He dressed in a long-coat red as bl- a rose. Red as a rose. And he wore black trousers with matching shoes. _What if I had fired before Brushen had jumped in the way?_ He didn't particularly like the subject, but his mind forced him to ponder that moment again and again. He was relieved from that agony by an alert on one of the many holo-screens in front of him.

"Five this time?" he muttered to himself. His gloves were installed with special radio signalers, so he could touch the screen for it to respond. With a few taps he brought up the cop-bots video feed previous to their destruction. There were three hedgehogs he could see, but it was obvious they weren't involved in the combat once all the footage was over. The Robotnik ran background checks on all three to be sure. The pink one was Sonia Windemere, part of one of those accursed aristocrat families. He had needed their support to reach where he was now, but they really were the epitome of all he stood against. Strangely there was no indication of why she would be on the streets. The green one was unregistered, but the computer suggested connections to various burglaries and a few gang wars.

The blue one made him stop a second. "Sonic Magee" looked like the hedgehog he had killed. It was probably a mental mistake generated by the blue fur, but he wouldn't let it be taken lightly. He lived with an old hedgehog named Charles Magee since before the revolution. _Or before the registration._ It didn't matter. The Queen had drowned in the river. His Hunters gave him proof of that. And she hadn't even given birth yet. They would have let him know. That and the fact she would of had triplets. Best to keep tabs anyways. He notified all cameras to specifically separate images of him.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

When Sonic came downstairs in the morning he used a carefully crafted excuse of temporary insomnia and being groggy when he woke up and falling out of bed. Sonia ate breakfast with them as they went through the same rituals as every other family in Mobius, at least those legal ones. They met Manic by a fountain in one of the nicer districts.

"So tell me, do ya' display this social ineptitude to everyone with short tempers, or only the armed ones." Sonic grunted as he splashed lukewarm water over his head. "I won't fault you too much. He's military, though."

"From where?" Sonic asked.

"Here and about fifteen years ago."

"Which means?" Sonia asked impatiently.

"He _is_ Royal Guard." A shared "Uh…"

"The gun was a tracer, which uses super heated bullets. You can't get them anywhere on the black market, and only the Royal Guard still used them around the time of the revolution. It also explains why he destroyed the bots."

"Great, so this means we're on the bad side of some kind of counter-revolutionary terrorist with a weird gun."

"Nah, if he was gonna' kill us, we'd be dead."

"Very comforting."

OOOOOOOOOO

"Let's do something slightly illegal." Yona suggested.

"Why?" Amy replied. Yona being a human, and Amy being a hedgehog, their friendship was a bit odd, not that any one would bother them about it.

"We're fifteen. We'll be sixteen soon. When the year ends we'll be rounded up and sent to work. And that's what we'll do for the _rest of our lives_."

"So we should get arrested and try to extend our time not working?"

"No, that's why it should be slightly illegal. Probably just going to a bar or something along those lines."

"So instead your suggesting that we, two naïve and innocent young girls, should walk into one of those hives of scum and villainy."

"Oh, I've heard of place, a person told me it's very nice and calm."

"How's that?"

"The bartender has an assault rifle under the counter."

"Very reassuring."

"And signs warning everyone."

"Right."

OOOOOOOOOO

"Okay, so the rifle thing was true, but I still say this was a stupid idea." Amy voiced as they looked wearily at the regular bar patrons.

"I notice you haven't said you don't like it." Yona replied.

"They're two different categories." They sat and listened to the band, most of whom weren't very good, and sang of various unimportant things. Then one band came up. It had three hedgehogs, a green one on drums, a pink one on keyboard, and a surprisingly familiar blue one playing a guitar. She caught the name "Underground" before they started playing.

OOOOOOOOOO

As Amy and Yona snuck back to their homes in a conspicuous manner, Yona continued talking.

"So, which one were you ogling."

"I was not ogling."

"You could have at least blinked. Still, which one was it?"

"Why are we even talking about this?"

"Um, maybe because there's nothing else to talk about. Stop distracting from the topic at hand."

"Fine. What if I say it was the good-looking one."

"I'm human. I have no clue what the difference between a good-looking and an ugly hedgehog is."

"Well, I plan to leave it that way."

"Ahhh…"

"You can be a real airhead at times, you know that, Yona?"

OOOOOOOOOO

About two weeks after Underground started playing gigs at various bars, Manic opened what approximated as the front "door" of his "house" to find a familiar black and grey haired man standing with a nervous look on his face.

"Why, hello, Mr. Jameson." Manic got out groggily, squinting in the sunlight.

"When can you play again?" The bar manager nearly yelled.

"Uhh…"

"Just tell me you can play tonight."

"Why?"

"I'm getting requests, written letters for you guys. I swear one person did, like, a dozen."

"How'd you find me?"

"I worked in newspapers when they existed, I'm used to finding people. Just tell me, are you playing or not?"

"I don't know…"

"I'll pay you. Ten pounds. Each"

"That's interesting."

"Please just…"

"Look, I can't give ya' an answer without talking to my band members first. Don't panic. I'll get back to you."

OOOOOOOOOO

"I've got good news and bad news." Manic began.

"What's the good news?" Sonia asked.

"We're popular."

"What's the bad news?"

"We're popular."

"Wait, what?"

"Well, we're getting paid now, but we also attract the attentions of everyone who we'd rather avoid."

"Oh, be serious, how bad can it get?"

"Well just as I was on my way here…"

"'Ello love."

"Ah, nice to see, well, feel really, your knife being held to my neck again, Lisa."

"I hear you and your band are quite a name about town these days."

"Yes, well that is entirely coincidental."

"Why aren't ya giving any of that nice money to your old friend?"

"Well, that'd be 'cause we aren't getting paid yet. Since you'll probably kill me out of anger, can I ask one question first?"

"What?"

"Who is the handsome looking chap in this here locket of yours?"

"Oh why you little…"

"Language dear. Watch where your swinging that thing, you might hurt someone. You know, this new man could be seriously harmful to our relationship, so far as you trying to kill me hasn't been. Well, I must be off, lovely time talking to ya'."

"Manic," Sonic asked. "Do you find it normal to have people trying to kill you?"

"Seeing as that's how I've spent my entire life, yes. Anyways, I've gotten a specific request for us to play again, and this time they're offering money…"

OOOOOOOOOO

The days began to blur as they rushed from one gig to another, getting barely a day to practice in between each one. The money came, too, and was given to Sonia to handle, much to Manic's disappointment. And the idea of being popular was true. It was very disturbing to see people waving signs of you in crowded bars knocking each other over. Sonic was certain he even saw a sign saying "BLUE IS CUTE". They had taken to leaving by the roof, where after a little encouragement, Sonic and Sonia learned how to jump between houses.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic squeezed the door shut gently.

"Ah, apprentice, long time, no see."

"A shared sentiment, Ferrel." The greasy human stood up from the shadowy corner he was sitting in.

"Long time, no lesson."

"Ah, well, ya' did say I should be spending time with family."

"But not to de negligence of your apprenticeship, I recall."

"Fine. What's the lesson?"

"Well, let's start with rock, ta' keep your focus. Rock is at its core about revolution, right?"

"Depends on how you view it, but yes, not that I actually plan to start one."

"Well, one's gonna' happen no matter what. What de' you know about the old Robo's system?"

"People wake up at six, go off in iron trolleys by six-thirty, come back at six."

"What do kids do?"

"Learn whatever… manure the Robo thinks is important. Until their fifteen, when they get a year off from doing anything." Ferrel nodded as a question was answered before it was asked.

"A perfect clockwork, uh… orange. Exotic, sweet on the inside, not really attractive on the other."

"You just made that up didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that's besides the point. Now, think for a second: when do they marry?"

"Uhh…"

"Never. And that means _no children for them_. So as they keep shrinking, we 'filth' get more and more of us, and we go storm the castle when we're all ticked. Either that or we all get harried out and Mobius becomes full of ghost towns."

"The Robotnik's conquering other countries every day."

"But that doesn't fix the actual problem."

"Ah. Well, I guess I should keep that in mind."

"Always should."

OOOOOOOOOO

"… Thank you, thank you very much. We'll be leaving now, so please don't crush us to death." Sonic finished. He threw his guitar over his shoulder on his strap while Sonia did the same with her key board. Manic simply sheathed his drumsticks dagger-style and thanked the manager once again for the loan of a drum set. As they waded through the dense crowd, Sonic tried to comment to Manic.

"What?" was the reply yelled back.

"I said, the bars get a bit too crowded." A pink hedgehog that had just finished elbowing her way through the crowd stopped in front of them, breathing in. She gained the look of someone who suddenly uncertain of whether they really wanted to fight a bear at about the point where it attacked them.

"Uh, uh,um, you… you could have a concert." She blurted out before turning back towards the crowd in embarrassment.

"Of course we will!" Sonic blurted out. Everyone in the bar stopped in dead silence for a few seconds.

"Well, when?" someone asked.

"We'll make sure you find out by eleven by the fountain at Dulcy Square." Manic put in before starting the all-out run to safety.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Sonic, what are you thinking? That probably breaks half a dozen laws." Sonia yelled.

"Sonic, you can't go trying to impress every pretty girl we meet; you need to leave some for me" Manic added mockingly.

"I wasn't trying to impress her." Sonic replied defensively. "And it was a good idea. The bars constantly have to kick people out because they didn't bring money or don't even know what money is. We still want to play, and we can probably find some place less crowded."

"I can help you there. And if any bloke feels they deserve money for it, Sonia can pay him." Manic said.

"Um, I don't have an endless supply, you know." Sonia said.

"But ya' got more than most people would dare ask for. Well, let's get to work."

OOOOOOOOOO

"So, fighting your way through the crowd to declare your undying love didn't quite work."

"Shut up, Yona."

"So instead you suggest a high profile illegal activity. You're quite the radical Amy."

"Stop bugging me."

"I'm not bugging you. I'm just being brutally honest."

"Blargh."

"Well, blargh to you too."

OOOOOOOOOO

The Robotnik leaned back in his throne. This Sonic and his two friends were showing many disturbing tendencies. They frequented bars on a near daily basis, but that wasn't altogether bad in and of its self. The Robotnik tolerated such establishments, knowing that if the oafs got their beer and raucous music they would think they were getting away with something. He evened keyed his Enforcer units to ignore them. But the three were gathering a large following, and-

_"Do you remember the three, the ultimate-"_ The Robotnik forced the song out of his mind. It had been an alleged "Oracle of Rock" who sported a ridiculous vertical hair style and a gold-leafed guitar. But it was that advice which led him to finally start his long planned revolution. The royal family had let the city rot under a system that led only to greed and immorality. Only a single violent thrust could shake the city awake and bring to it a glorious future, and he had been the one to do that.

But back to the matter at hand. Such a large following could be easily manipulated with the proper wording into forming a mob, which would probably over throw his system by weight of numbers and the provocation of other countries who hated what he stood for, particularly Tsarminia. The songs proved their intent: When not talking about dark apocalypses or simple-minded romantics, they sung about bringing utter anarchy with that idiotic word: freedom. Their "Freedom" was nothing but tyranny at the hands of a thousand different forces that never disappeared, an easily used, easily forgotten catch phrase. They had to be dealt with.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Well, here it is." Manic said. Sonic and Sonia looked around in amazement. The theater was bigger than any other space they had ever been in. The roof was well over five stories up, and the seating was twenty-five chairs deep, stretching three quarters of the way around the central stage.

"Woah." They both said.

"Well, you two can start pokin' around, and I'll get the word out."

OOOOOOOOOO

Amy grunted impatiently. She had been by the fountain for near half an hour, and it seemed no one had heard anything.

"You know anything?" She asked a random hedgehog next to her.

"Well, I heard it was Saturday."

"Really?" Amy asked, glad to hear anything. "When?"

"Oh, seven-thirty, I think."

"Thanks." She said, and when someone asked her the same, she told them what she had heard, and then realized that the person who had told her looked exactly like the band's drummer. "Hey, wait a minute!" she said turning to see he was gone. Pushing her way through the crowd, Amy emerged to see him nowhere. A person turned to her, saying,

"Hey I heard the concerts Saturday, at seven thirty." She turned to see that other people were passing around the same message.

"Ha, ha, very funny." She muttered mirthlessly.

OOOOOOOOOO

"I think I found something." Sonia called out. Sonic took a pause from dusting the seats, and walked to her voice. He went on the stage, past the curtain through a hall, and down a flight of stairs he hadn't noticed before. The room was filled with pieces of random equipment. Sonia stepped out from behind a stack of crates, dusting herself off.

"There you are. I found a drum set that looked in good condition, which should save us having to rent one. I think they also have a few amplifiers we could use." The guitar and the keyboard had built in microphones, but that probably wouldn't be enough.

"Well, let's get to work." They took the various drum set components one at a time, and by the time they got to the first amp they saw Manic returning.

"Okay," He began. "I've given us five days to set up and practice. I see you found a drum set, good, and amps."

"There's probably more we could use." Sonia added.

"You work on finding it then, and I'll help you carry if you need me."

"I'll be fine."

"Sonic, finish cleaning the chairs, and then start working on ornamentation for this place. I'll be setting up the electronics."

"You know how to do that?"

"Enough to make it work."

"Okay. Let's go."

OOOOOOOOOO

Five days later, Underground was practicing for the final time before their concert. As the chord for a song trailed off, Sonic twitched irritably.

"Argh." He said.

"What?" Manic asked.

"It's just, we've played these all before. We should play something new."

"Well, now's a bit too late to be saying so."

"We could play _Freedom's March_." Sonia interjected.

"_Rock_ band, remember?" Manic replied. They all laughed at what had become an private joke for them.

"No, here me out. We use the words for it, but just give it a better tune."

"Like what?" Manic asked. Sonia sang a short snatch.

"I like that." Sonic said.

"Well, let's get working on it."

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic and Sonia went home to eat a supper with Chuck, and went to bed at the call. Both stayed in their beds until they heard the door for Chuck's room shut. They got out quietly and slipped their instruments onto their backs, meeting outside their rooms. They crept down the stairs together, making sure not to make a sound. When they were almost through the kitchen and at the front door, a voice made their heads turn.

"Try to be back before midnight, will you?" It was Chuck, drinking a cup of coffee in the dark. Sonic and Sonia nodded half-heartedly, before continuing to the door and out it. Chuck chuckled to himself before taking another sip.

OOOOOOOOOO

"So, I 'ear its big night tonight." Ferrel said.

"Yep." Manic replied as he finished a rare sponge bath. He wanted to look as near to his best as possible. Manic grabbed his fanny back and tied it around his waist.

"Bringin' your kit?" Ferrel asked.

"Never know what can happen." Manic replied.

"I've raised you well." Ferrel said with a smile.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Their called Underground." Jimmy said. The elegant housing was a bit overwhelming. "And their having a concert tonight."

"Your sure it's the same girl." Nalsia asked.

"I think so. She looks a lot like the poster."

"Good. Is she wearing anything… peculiar?" Jimmy's face scrunched up in concentration.

"Well… there's this pink jewel she wears, it's on a gold chain."

"Thank you so much young man." Nalsia said as she patted the boy on the head. "Do you want anything?" Jimmy looked down uncertainly.

"Something to eat would be nice."

"Jarvis, would you make this lad a meal?"

"Certainly, ma'am." The butler bowed.

OOOOOOOOOO

Amy flattened her hair and put a band over it. She didn't know why she was pursuing this dumb crush. He'd probably never even notice her, but… she just kept going, because it felt right.

OOOOOOOOOO

In some dark corner of Mobius City, a red-furred individual finished oiling the barrel of an assault rifle and set it on a table next to him. Going over to a dented case labeled "Jake D.", he opened it up and pulled out a pair of spiked brass knuckles. He slipped them on near-religiously. Taking a city-grey camo cloak off a hook, he pulled it around his neck and clipped shut the fastener. He picked the rifle back up, and carefully loaded in a cartridge of ammunition. From what he heard and knew, these would be some interesting times.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Sonic stepped onto the stage amidst the indiscriminate screaming of fans.

"We would like to thank you all for coming today," More screaming made him pause. "And I'd like to clarify; none of us expected this to happen. Shall we begin?"

"YES!" Was the resounding reply. Manic began a _tap tap tap tap_ on his drums, and sounded the count off.

"And a one, a two, a one, two, three four." Sonic slammed down on his guitar chords, and the three's voices merged into one sound.

OOOOOOOOOO

_Across the hills, and through the woods,_

_Over the rivers booold,_

_Freedoms march is on the move,_

_A vengeance not so cooold,_

_There's a fire in my heart,_

_A blade within my haaand,_

_I swear upon my love this day_

_That we shall always staaand._

The guitar roared like fire, the keyboard rang like bells in the wind, and the drums shook like the earth itself as they played song after song. Amy clapped her hands in time with the beat, and roared along when she knew the words. She could feel a synergy with the rest of the crowd, even joining in the mass electric slide. It didn't matter about _him_ at that point, it just mattered about being alive and feeling the joy of the moment.

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! Goin' o'er the field_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! We shall never yield_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! Let it ever ring_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! We shall always sing_

_Your crimes, they scream themselves out loud,_

_They cannot be ignooored,_

_Though I do detest all war,_

_I must take up this swooord._

_I would gladly give my life,_

_To end your tyrannyyy._

_Though I wish it were no true,_

_This is how it must beee._

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! Goin' o'er the field_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! We shall never yield_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! Let it ever ring_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! We shall always sing_

_Through the badlands, in the streets, _

_Can't you hear our caaall?_

_'I am sorry highness, _

_But I know that you must faaall.'_

_In your corridors, down your halls,_

_I hope you hear us knaaave,_

_Freedom's march here this day,_

_You'll see we are the braaave!_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! Goin' o'er the field_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! We shall never yield_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! Let it ever ring_

_Freedom's march! Freedom's march! We shall always sing_

_Freedom's march! Freedoms march!_

_Free-dom's March!_

OOOOOOOOOO

The Robotnik's temper stood on its tip. They dared to sing _that_ song? A different tune maybe, but the intent was the same. There was no longer any doubt in his mind: They were dangerous radicals who planned to overthrow his system and possibly re-impose the monarchy. He directed the pre-positioned unit of Enforcers to enter the theater.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic came to the end of the song, and as the crowd roared he took a moment for the sake of his breath, but it was all cut short by a _BOOM!_ As five gleaming cop-bots walked through the doorways. Everyone was silent. They watched fearfully as the machines marched towards the stage. Everyone quivered as their ruler spoke through his tools.

"Sonic Magee, Sonia Windemere, and 'Manic'. You are charged with conspiracy to rebellion, incitement of anarchy, and the manipulation of innocents. Anyone else who leaves immediately will only be assigned minor charges for breaking curfew. Any whom stay will be included in their charges."

One by one the crowd broke away, slowly streaming towards the exit, some looking back, wondering what would happen. They all knew the answer. Death. It was the only way to stop a rebellion, though at the moment this felt like nothing of the sort. At least one girl was heard crying. When they were all gone, the Robotnik spoke again.

"Initiate execution sequence." The machine began counting down.

"60, 59…" The three realized that this was for real, they were going to die. Sonic took hold of his brother and sister's hands, looking for a last comfort in each other. "57, 56…"

OOOOOOOOOO

The Robotnik stared at what he was doing. In truth, he didn't like it, but he had no choice. A rebellion could destroy the entire world. They had to die.

_"Do you remember the Three…" _he tried to force the song out of his head

_"The ultimate epitome…" _it kept going no matter how hard he tried

_"Of all that is against what you stand for…"_ He saw the gems around the hedgehogs' neck were glowing. He had seen that happen before. It was how the queen had escaped actually…

"no…" he whispered to himself. "NO!" he roared.

OOOOOOOOOO

"You're dead, You're dead, you hear me. You weren't even born. I killed you. You're dead." It was the final insult as Sonic had to hear the leader he once trusted rant insanely, words he couldn't understand. "40, 39…"

OOOOOOOOOO

Amy tried to stop her tears, but she couldn't. They were going to die because she had said something stupid.

"You're pathetic." She said and hit herself across the cheek. It didn't help. She wanted to hurt someone. She saw a sledge hammer leaning against a wall and picked it up, ready to bang it against the wall until her arms gave out, but she did something else. "Will we just let him do this?" she yelled. Heads turned. "We'll let him kill people because they _sang_. And then run and cover our own miserable heads? Well?" people began to fathom her words. "Let's kick his…" She cursed.

Turning to the theater she ran screaming a wordless battle cry. Yona looked about and, grabbing the lid off a waste bin, joined Amy in the mad charge. More joined in, some stopping to grab makeshift weapons. Lisa pulled out her purple hilted knife, and then the handgun she had in her pocket.

OOOOOOOOOO

"9, 8…"

"Dead, dead, dead!" Sonic squeezed his eyes tighter. _Just finish it. Let it be over._

"Yeeeaaaaaaaaaararrrrrrrrgh"

The cry drowned out all else. Sonic's eyes flashed open and his heart beat faster. A pink hedgehog was charging down the aisle, armed only with a sledgehammer. A human girl was following her. The robots were about to fire, she couldn't possibly make it in…

_KENG!_ The hammer came down, demolishing the first robot's head down into its core, ruining it. As it fell the other cop-bots' programs took over and turned to defend themselves. As they started to aim their arm weapons at the dumb-faced hedgehog, a trash can lid bounced of one, turning their attention to the human. But now a veritable mob of people were streaming through the doors, and under the constant fusillade of ineffective rocks, bottles, and bricks, the cop-bots couldn't focus enough to fire. The hedgehog girl swung her hammer at the cop-bot next to her, but it blocked with one claw, and they became locked in a vicious circle of combat.

OOOOOOOOOO

The Robotnik stared, awakened from his ranting by the mobs appearance. Shaking himself from that image he began furiously typing in command codes to his machines.

"No you fools. Kill the three; the others don't matter." Finally he managed to override one Enforcer's reaction programs and got it to turn and level its gun at the three. They began running away _so unlike their father_ uselessly, hoping to dodge his machine's weapon. The Robotnik swore as the report of a jam came back, and directed it to utilize its claws.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic risked a glance back at the machine coming towards him and his siblings. It wasn't firing yet, but if it did they'd probably die. They needed a distraction.

"Run. I'll take the machine." Sonic said turning back.

"Ahem, gang war veteran, maybe?" Manic said angrily.

"I know. You'll last longer." Patting their backs Sonic turned and ran towards the cop-bot. It swung a claw too far out, and he threw up his arms more out of instinct than design. The arm caught him or he caught the arm, and it arced nearly to the robots other shoulder, which Sonic grabbed, letting go of the arm. He swung his arm up and began pulling himself up. The cop-bot stopped attacking him, and raised its gun arm, making a strange _chunk_ sound. Then it began firing.

_ Crack._

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic and Sonia had reached the seats by the time a bullet went through one just to their right. Turning left, they started running behind the seats, ducking to provide scant cover. The one they had just passed had the back blown through, then the next. They tried to run faster.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Argh…" Sonic muttered as he winced in pain. His hands were bloody from beating the cop-bots head. He needed some way to stop it. Letting his head droop, he saw the blue gem on its chain. Pulling it off, he rammed it into the cop-bot's first eye shattering the glass, and did the same to the second. The cop-bot stopped its rotation, but kept firing at the same spot. Sonic breathed heavy. Looking around, he saw that the girl hedgehog had finished her duel, and was trying in vain to give aid against another cop-bot. One was on the ground, having somehow caught fire, while the other was covered in different people trying to bring it down by their sheer weight.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic tripped and fell flat on the floor, with Sonia running to help him. He saw two bottles of unopened beer that had been stashed under a chair for safe keeping.

"Now what are these doing here?" he said, standing up with them and levering off the lids with a pocket knife.

"Manic, I don't think this is the time to have a drink." Sonia said angrily.

"Relax," he replied, pouring some of the alcohol on pieces of cloth from his fanny pack, and stuffing them in the bottle's tops. "There's always time for a Moltov cocktail." He pulled out a lighter, handed one of the bottles to Sonia, and started running towards the stage. Sonia saw that the cop-bot was firing at the same spot now, and Sonic was on top. Manic lit the cloth in the bottles. "Throw when I say so." Manic yelled.

"What?"

"Just do it. Sonic, jump! Sonia, THROW!" Sonic's face twisted towards them as they called out, and jumped when he saw the flaming bottles in their hands. Manic and Sonia hurtled the impromptu missiles at the cop-bot as hard as they could, the bottles exploding in flame as they hit. Sonic hit the stage hands-first, leaving a red smear as he slid across. The cop-bot tilted for a moment, turning towards Manic and Sonia, before stopping altogether. Getting up Sonic limped over to it, grunting with each step. With bloodied hands he pushed as hard as he could, and with a groan the robot fell, putting a hole in the stage. In the front of the theater, the girl hedgehog looked up from the destruction of the last cop-bot, and dropped her sledgehammer. Running up on the stage, she caught Sonic in a tight-armed hug.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." She muttered, on the verge of tears.

"Um, hi?" Sonic replied

"Wow." The girl turned to the voice, somewhere in the highest seats. "This is how it happens." It was the eerily familiar visage of an echidna. "Fifteen years, and this is what I get?" Knuckles gestured a hand at the crowd of fear-struck people. "Kids, children, worse, _teenagers_." He walked onto the stage until his eyes were level with the three's. "_Prince_ Manic, _Princess_ Sonia, _Prince_ Sonic; you have a lot to learn."


	8. Act 2 Exodus: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Knuckles stepped lightly as he descended the old staircase. When he reached the bottom, he made a gesture with his hands, and five youths followed suit, Manic among them. Going over to a drape covered object, he pulled it off, showing an ornamented wardrobe beneath. Opening the door, he revealed a black plastic casing that was nearly half the height of the wardrobe.

"Manic, you get this one and head back." Manic obliged, walking over, and picking up the case. As he turned, he asked.

"When ya' gonna' explain things?"

"When there's time." Knuckles replied.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic sat on the grass outside Mobius City, looking at his hands. After the fight, they had been so burnt and bloodied that Shanks had to bandage them, and put gloves on to protect them. Shanks was an older kid, an adult really, who had some medical training from his father. He was also the only person that Knuckles didn't seem to detest with vehemence. A pink hedgehog girl, the same one who had hugged him after the fight, walked up and stood there silently.

"Yes?" He asked

"Um, do you think I'm… cute?" she asked, her eyes kept flitting around.

"I guess." She suppressed a giggle. "Uh, what's your name?"

"A-Amy Rose." She said.

"Oh, that's a nice name."

"Yeah, I've g-got to go now." She nearly ran off, trying to hide her reddening face. Sonia walked over from someplace else. Her keyboard was slung on her back, while Sonic's guitar was lying next to him. They simply hadn't thought of leaving their instruments behind.

"You shouldn't encourage her, you know." She said.

"What am I supposed to say, 'your ugly and your name sounds funny'? Two things which, to make clear, I don't believe."

"Now is not the time for people to be pursuing romantic fancies when there is the threat of death."

"I'm trying to be polite."

"I think it's worse to give her the wrong idea." Sonic stood up, picked up his guitar, and walked off.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic had finished enjoying a short break, when Scrat Larkin, a twitchy, weasel boy who had been helping out, said,

"Kn-Knuckles wants us back." They went over to where the echidna was waiting, along with a dozen or so other kids. With a flick of his hand, Knuckles began leading them back into the city.

"We need food now. A lot. Don't stop for breaks, keep up the flow. Manic, I have the feeling you know where to get it unobtrusively." Manic nodded and began listing of Citizen's Cafeterias that had surpluses of food. Knuckles nodded appreciatively. "Take it from the dumpsters, I'll go inside."

"Isn't that more risky?" Someone asked.

"And what he'll expect?"Someone else added.

"Yes, but the Robotnik needs to think he knows what's happening. I'll also be taking out a few Cop-bots, so stay away from me." Knuckles stopped talking, and split off from the group to do what he needed. As Manic and the rest of the kids prowled around Mobius City, they noticed more Cop-bots than usual, and that no one was on the streets. They encountered little resistance at the first two dumpsters they raided, but the third was different. As Manic turned to leave, the all too familiar feeling of a gun barrel pressed in on his headspikes.

"What'ch you nuts doin' here?"

"Looking for food, like any other gang." Manic said, keeping a straight face by habit.

"No you ain't, you those –ing rebels" Manic eyebrow raised at the odd expletive. "You're why he's –ing hunting us now."

"So ya' trying to run where there's no room to." Manic said. "Brilliant. Ya' better off with us."

"Fighting a -ing war?"

"No. Running." Scrat looked about to say something, but Manic silenced him with a quick twitch.

"Where?"

"The North, of course."

"Those –ing crazy foxes?"

"Where else can we go? There we might have a chance." There was a short silence. Manic kicked back, knocking his assailants feet out, and swiftly took the gun from his hands. Quickly putting his foot on the assailants chest and pointing the gun at his head, he added, "Ya' should also consider that ya' wouldn't have won this fight."

"I'm in." Was the meek reply.

OOOOOOOOOO

The collection of food was smooth after that. As they started to reach the city limits, Manic turned back, saying,

"Yeah, there's something I kinda' need to do…"

"It's okay." Manic turned towards the speaker, an amazingly obscured yet large figure perched atop a waste bin. "I believe you've rightfully earned the rank of Journeyman."

"Thanks, Ferrel." Manic said. The human who had attacked them earlier turned his head.

"You're…"

"Formerly apprenticed to the best thief in Mobius City? Heck yeah."

"Na', thought you looked kinda like the drummer guy…"

"Manic?" Manic asked.

"Yeah, him." Manic pondered this before saying,

"Guess ya' right." They left Mobius City.

OOOOOOOOOO

They met up with Knuckles at the improvised camp outside Mobius City. Knuckles had made them go there almost immediately after the concert fight, saying that the Robotnik would be expecting an immediate uprising, which would have been suicidal on their part.

"Put the gear in bags. Carry what needs to be carried." He yelled at them. Those who tried to do nothing got a swift hit to the head. "We need to move." Once everyone was standing, he said it. "We are marching North."

"I'm not." Some one yelled from the crowd.

"You don't have a choice. It's either come with me or turn back and die. And that's what The Robotnik wants: for us to disappear quietly so no one has to see him do it."

"You're gonna get us killed."

"I aim to win. Whether you live depends on luck and your own determination. Start marching people." So everyone lifted up one foot and put down the other in front. Then they did it again and again. Knuckles turned around and began walking backyards so he could address the crowd he led. "It appears I need to make some things clear. The Robotnik _did_ try to kill you. It doesn't matter how nice he acts or how good his system seems, he's a freedom hating sonuva grub who doesn't give a care about what happens to anybody as long as it fits his vision of a perfect world."

"Speak it." Someone in the crowd yelled. Knuckles glare in their direction, and then went to the back to watch for stragglers.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Well this is pleasant." Sonic said.

"Oh, yes." Manic agreed. "Marching to an uncertain destination led by an unstable gun-toting echidna."

"And the certainty of death if we go back."

"I think the scenery's nice." Sonia said, trying to change the mood. Manic grunted and looked at his feet, but Sonic at least tried to take some of it in. All his life he had seen the greys and browns that made up the city. Out here there were silent green hills. They nearly took his mind away from his nightmare.

OOOOOOOOOO

They marched on until the sun was halfway below the horizon and Knuckles yelled,

"Why aren't you moving?"

"Vergible's collapsed." Someone yelled back in outrage. Knuckles paused and looked around angrily, before grunting.

"We stop here. Put him somewhere soft and get Shanks to him." No one questioned the break. They were too tired from what had been the longest walk in their life. When everyone was settled, he let them take out some of the food, one to a person. For the first time in his life Sonic truly appreciated the concept of pre-cooked, pre-packaged food, even if it was too cold.

"Most genius thing the Robotnik's ever done. Easy to carry, easy to eat, and enough of a surplus to feed half the unregistered." Manic said. Sonia just looked down as she ate. When everyone's food containers were emptied, Knuckles had them get up and come together again, to many groans of disappointment.

"Open the cases. He said." Clicks sounded everywhere as the plastic clasps were undone and the cases opened. Inside were neatly arranged tracers, ammo cartridges, and rolled up camo-cloaks. "The weapons and cloaks of the royal guard: every last one of them. Everybody take one, but don't load them." Some flinched at the idea of holding such a dangerous tool, some were eager to hold the black metal in their hands, while others were indifferent to what was just another gun. He went over to where the three were. "Now, you." He said to them. "Do you have any idea who you parents were?"

"Is this something to do with what you said back in the theatre? Because that seriously failed at sounding cool." Manic replied. Knuckles ignored him.

"You're the last of the royalty." He said.

"That's impossible." Sonic replied immediately. "The Queen died before she gave birth."

"And yet you're here, wearing those jewels." he said, pointing to the one hanging from Sonic's neck.

"That can't be true." Sonia said. "If they were some sign of birth we'd be dead by now. The Robotnik would have killed us."

"Easy." Knuckles said. "The royalty never mentioned them, and usually didn't display them publicly."

"So how'd ya' find out about them?" Manic said smugly. By now, people were beginning to take a great interest in the conversation.

"It was part of my training in the guard. I never quite figured out why, but it had something to do with national security." The three stared at him blankly. "I don't know." Knuckles said irritably. "But that doesn't change the truth."

"Which is that you're a nut job." Manic finished.

"I believe him." Manic turned in shock at hearing Sonic say that. "I can't say it makes sense, but I still believe him."

"How?"

"How do we know we're brothers?"

"And it doesn't matter what we think, because the Robotnik believes this too." Sonia said, turning to her brothers. "That's what he was yelling about." Knuckles nodded as he realized this too.

"Fine." Manic grunted in defeat.

"Start preparing for the night." Knuckles said. As they walked to find someplace comfortable enough to sleep, Manic muttered,

"Still think it's a dumb idea."

"Why do you have to keep saying so?" Sonic replied in irritation.

"Plausible deniability. If we had all agreed right there, it might have set of the jewels again, which is more trouble than it's worth. That and it _is_ the most nutcase, been-reading-to-many-kids-books thing I've ever heard." Sonic looked at him oddly. Manic just shook his head and looked up at the black sky. "Our parents, the real ones, not the ones who gave birth to us, did they know? Did they think this, that we might be the meaning of their deaths, and still not tell us? I could really see it happening, even with whatever fat cat raised Sonia."

OOOOOOOOOO

"Ya' thought this why?" Ferrel asked. He was in a smoke-filled bar, sharing a table with Chuck and Nalsia. It made for quite a spectacle.

"I used to be a friend of the queen's parents when she was still young. Was even invited to the wedding." Chuck replied. "I didn't know anyone else who was pregnant when I found him, so she was the only one I thought would leave a child to me."

"Makes sense now." Ferrel said to himself.

"What?" Nalsia asked.

"Oh, in my younger years, prince used to chase me as part of the guard. Didn't realize it was him till I saw his picture in a newspaper talkin' 'bout the old king's funeral. Had a gem just like Manic's. Didn't connect the two 'till now. But thats all gone now. Now we got to decide whose side we're on: Our kid's, or the old basket case who's made our lives-"

OOOOOOOOOO

The Robotnik stared at various security footages, breathing impatiently. He had taken far too long to calm down after the riot, and had buried himself in his work afterwards. He had been hoping they would realize the insanity of their actions and return, so he could sort things out peacefully. Most probably were just caught up to much in their emotions, But he would still have to deal with the…

"Heirs." He muttered to himself. "Why do they insist on mocking me like this."

"Maybe they didn't know." Said a new video panel. It was Draggo, a wolf from Neworld that the Robotnik employed as a psychologist and advisor, though the Robotnik mostly used him as a devil's advocate. "If they had any idea how much danger their lives were in they would have run away, or announce it so they could get more support. This all means, 'course, that you just handed them a loaded gun they didn't have yet, due to your little rant."

"I've sent an ambassador unit to negotiate with them." The Robotnik said confidently.

"When do you think it will catch up?"

"Given its rate of movement compared to my estimation of teenagers without proper gear, food, and their need to rest, I'd say towards the end of tomorrow."

OOOOOOOOOO

Knuckles woke them up before the crack of dawn, had them eat, and then set them marching again. He assigned others to watch the rear so he could lead the column, and made the three stay near him. They went in silence for a short time before Knuckles said,

"Sing."

"Sing what?" Sonia asked.

"Something, a marching song."

"We don't know any."

"Do you know 'Dark Crusade'? That'd work."

"Isn't that, like, the most racist song ever?" Sonic asked.

"Really?" Knuckles smirked. "I thought it was about a book." Sonic hummed a few bars before launching into the song. His siblings joined in with Manic keeping a passable beat with his drumsticks. Soon the rest of the column had joined in the methodic song.

_A multitude of horrors hide behind the twinkling light,_

_These are the evils, all the terrors of the night_

_Ten thousand warriors upon which I do call,_

_And one by one all of these evil ones do fall._

_This is the Dark Crusade, Come and follow me._

_This is the Dark Crusade, To keep all peoples free._

_This is the Dark Crusade, Shall you follow me?_

_This is the Dark Crusade, Fight for liberty!_

_Across the airless moon and twisted tunnels old,_

_I fight this battle 'longside my warriors bold,_

_This is the vision that's been given to me,_

_To defend the freedom of all humanity!_

_This is the Dark Crusade, Come and follow me._

_This is the Dark Crusade, To keep all peoples free._

_This is the Dark Crusade, Shall you follow me?_

_This is the Dark Crusade, Fight for liberty!_

_Throughout the universe this mighty war is waged,_

_Against the evil things that cannot just be caged._

_This is a battle that goes on ev'rywhere,_

_So go do something, please just do not stare._

_This is the Dark Crusade, Come and follow me._

_This is the Dark Crusade, To keep all peoples free._

_This is the Dark Crusade, Shall you follow me?_

_This is the Dark Crusade, Fight for liberty!_

They marched on throughout the day, stopping only briefly for lunch. By the time the sun was close to setting someone yelled from the back.

"Something's coming." Everybody stopped and Knuckles had to fight his way through to reach the back, while the three followed in his wake. When they got there the figure could be made out as a single, humanoid shape, with a white flag over it. Knuckles readied his tracer. The figure got closer and he lowered it. It wasn't a cop-bot. It was short and thinner, dressed in some sort of simple robe. It had a tall rounded, head with large, bulbous blue eyes and a peculiar face plate giving a helmeted look to it, while the entire thing was a dark orange-yellow.

"Servitor-class robot." Someone in the crowd said.

"Greetings." It said. Everyone took a step back at the sound of their not-quite former ruler. "I wish to parlays with your leaders and-" There was a _crack_ as Knuckles demolished the machines head with his tracer. Everyone stared at him.

"We weren't given a chance." He said softly. He turned around and yelled to the crowd. "We keep going. We've lost enough time as it is." There was a rustling of bodies as Knuckles and the three returned to the front.

The Robotnik blinked in shock.

"You didn't try to negotiate the first time." Draggo said. He was using a secondary link to view the same material. "Who's the echidna?"

"I don't know." The Robotnik answered, tapping his head furiously. "He's older than the rest of them by too much, probably early thirties.

"See those brass knuckles he's wearing? I'm guessing some kind of gang lord. Found all those scared kiddies you left and lead them out saying he can help them."

"No, see those rifles all of them are holding? Those are tracers, a rare gun that fires super-heated rounds, and was used exclusively by the guard for its penetrative abilities. My grandfather made the basic design, so I'm familiar with them. I know someone has been preventing them from appearing on any sort of weapon black market. Also, he is most likely old enough to have been in the guard at the time of my revolution."

"Didn't you find all the graves for them?"

"It's quite easy to make false graves. I found a personnel record that might be him." Draggo ran his eyes over it: Calibar Felshio, born 1955, died 1972…

OOOOOOOOOO

When they stopped for the night, Knuckles looked in the bags, before making a terrible decision.

"We won't have dinner." There were groans and cries of outrage.

"You can't do that."

"Uh, he just did."

"He can't enforce it."

"He's got a gun."

"Well so do we."

"His gun's got ammo."

"Dang it." Knuckles rolled his eyes.

"Look, idiots, we don't have enough to feed us all the way to the North, and you don't need food to sleep."

"Actually," Manic said. "Before we go any farther I think ya' might need to explain the logic behind going North at all, seeing how it's also in the Robotnik's empire."

"It isn't as fortified or changed as any of the Mobian lands, because he wanted them to feel some degree of autonomy and not start another war. Also, where we're going he won't have even bothered to reorganize because of how remote it is."

"Oh. What is it?"

"Just a town I went through on my way down to Mobius."

"You're from the North?" Knuckles rolled his eyes.

"Obviously." He was secretly thankful that Manic had taken attention away from food.

The next day they ate like a pack of wolves, starved from their ordeal that night. Some were crying when they finished. Knuckles had them get back up and start walking again. They walked all morning and halfway through the afternoon when someone yelled from the back.

"There's a man waving a guitar."

"What?" Knuckles yelled back as the crowd slowed to a stop

"There's a man waving a guitar."

"Why?"

"I think he wants to speak to us." Knuckles grunted and yelled.

"Tell him to make it short." The person in the back, another echidna named Dalin, turned as the figure ran up. It was a human, dressed in a loose white outfit Dalin couldn't quite identify. His eyelids were dark, his eyes were wide, and his hair stood straight and ridiculously tall. The guitar was gold-colored.

"I'm sorry," the man said. "It's just, I saw you going by and thought you might need some help."

"Uh, like what?'

"Food and boots." Dalin turned and yelled.

"He says he has boots and food."

"How many boots?" Came back as a reply.

"A bit more than five hundred." The man yelled.

"Why the heck do you have five hundred pairs of boots?" Sonic yelled.

"Well," The man said. "People used to pass by so often, and they never had a good pair of boots. So I decided to stock up. Then people stopped passing by." There was a wavering of the crowd as Knuckles made his way to the back. He took a few seconds to look the man up and down himself, before saying,

"That's good enough."

OOOOOOOOOO

As they walked into a cavern Sonic was still talking about the strange occurrence.

"I mean seriously, where would you even find five hundred pairs of boots?" Knuckles was busy discussing matters with the man. Most of the kids were too busy staring at what seemed to be the natural cavern that the man lived in.

"Alright kiddies, this very nice man here has agreed to give us some of his food, so you better thank him really politely." Knuckles said.

"They don't look to young to me." The man said.

"I still try to keep things so they can understand them. Alright form one line, take some food, this shouldn't be hard." Faces were eager as they received plates of cold, sealed, heavily preservative-laden food, but it meant they had dinner. As people sat down to eat, Knuckles chose a seat next to the man. "So, how'd you get this much food?"

"Oh, I just never eat anything that the Robotnik gives me. I much prefer my own food."

"Really?"

"Yes. Oh, sorry, I keep a farm on the other side of the caves."

"Ah. Why are you out here?"

"Oh, I guess it's just… safer. Wouldn't you agree, guardi-" The man stopped what he was saying. Knuckles rolled his eyes, lifted his tracer and pointed at the man's head. Everyone's chatter stopped. Sonia stood up and yelled.

"Gah. Do you always have to use violence?"

"Well, the funny thing is, it works." Knuckles yelled back. "Now shut up and sit down, I may be saving our lives here.

"I don't think I know what you're talking about." The man said, trying to avoid the gun barrel.

"You're getting food from the Robotnik's system," Knuckles said. "But you don't work in it. And you called me a-"

"Guardian." Knuckles' eyes peaked in confusion. "You're a guard and someday you'll be the guardian."

"What makes you so certain."

"It's my job to know those things. Like the fact that the heirs to the throne survived, or that you are the last of the old guard. I'm a… I'm the…" The man gulped. "I'm the Oracle." Manic stood up.

"Okay this is stupid. Let me guess what will come up next. Ya' told the Robotnik that we'd overthrow him, so he launched the revolution trying to kill us before we were born, but by some coincidence he didn't know that we had been born already, and we got hidden somehow, and these little gems things we have give us magical powers which lets us shoot frickin' laser beams out of our instruments." There was a silence punctuated by Manic's heavy breathing.

"More or less." The Oracle said. "Except for the part about the gems. I don't think they're all that special really." Knuckles rolled his eyes, something he found himself doing a lot lately.

"Okay, let's leave this place. He said turning to the others.

"Uh, Aren't you worried he's going to tell the Robotnik about us." Sonic said.

"Really? I hadn't thought of that. So what, perhaps, is he going to tell the Robotnik that he doesn't already know." Having finished his latest batch of yelling, Knuckles stomped out the cavern's door.

"Er… what about the boots?" Scrat asked. Knuckles stopped.

"Okay, we take the boots, and _then_ we leave."

"Actually," The Oracle said. "I believe it would be best if I came with. I would stay in the center of the group where you could watch me, and not be allowed a weapon."

"That's one of the most sensible things I've heard today. But no singing prophecies." Knuckles said.

"What?" The Oracle said.

"I saw the weird guitar, and I survive by knowing things. You can sing, and you can prophesize, but not both."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you waking everybody up in the middle of the night when you fell the need to prophesize."

"Okay, I'll try."

"Either you do it or you don't. There is not much 'trying' involved."

"okay." The Oracle said meekly.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

While Knuckles wasn't entirely pleased with the prospect himself, the novelty of having an oracle at least kept the kids busy.

"Does he like me?"

"Does she like me?"

"Does he like me?"

"Does she like me?"

"Does he like me?"

"Does she like me?"

"What does my future look like?"

"What is in my future?"

"I die horribly, don't I?"

"Why, jack-donkey, why?" Came memorably from Manic.

"Accident. First, the last Oracle told me that _he_ was going to give a prophecy to a man named Robotnik that would let him start the revolution. When he died, he told me I had to do it so that Mobius wouldn't be destroyed. I didn't believe him, and vowed not to do it. Unfortunately, I didn't think that the Robotnik would take the name after the revolution." Was the rather long reply.

"Right." Was Manic's response.

"you asked him, didn't you?" Yona said confidently.

"Asked who?" Amy said, trying to fake obliviousness.

"The Oracle dude, duh."

"Why would I do that?"

"Cause ya' wanna' know if Sonic loves ya'." Lisa said, poking her head in.

"Enh." Amy said.

"Scared ya', didn't I?"

"No." Amy replied defensively.

"Yeah I did."

"Who are you anyways?"

"Lisa, gang boss and fellow freedom fighter." Lisa spat on her hand and extended it. Amy did the same tentatively, and shook her hand.

"So, why are bothering me?"

"His brother's an old friend. I just want to talk to someone he may be getting to know soon. You seem safe enough since ya' don't have that hammer."

"It's right here, actually." Amy said, picking it up from in front of her. Lisa's eyes widened.

"I gotta' go now." She said and hurriedly went away.

"So how are you going to deal with this?" Draggo said.

"I'm increasing the quotas of my factories for mark seven enforcer parts. All the new ones except for the surplus will be pooled together as a single force. Once I have enough I will set them to pursue the rebels with periodic recharges. The rebels will be scouted out by a large number of mark six corvus units."

"No more negotiations?"

"Negotiations have failed."

"They probably would have worked better as your first option." The Robotnik eyes widened at the impudent statement, but he forced himself to calm down. After all, that was why he was employing Draggo.

"I don't know what you've been told," Knuckles sang out.

"I don't know what I've been told," The rest replied.

"But this song's getting' pretty old."

"But this song's getting' pretty old."

"You could cover me with fleas,"

"You could cover me with fleas,"

"But it would more than this song please."

"But it would more than this song please."

They had probably been marching for more than a month now. Their feet barely noticed the marching anymore, and they had reconstructed a loose semblance of their old life. People traded, gambled for, and bought the same fifty odd trinkets in a steady loop, and relationships started and died in the course of days. Right then the sun was beginning to set, but Knuckles was keeping the same pace. As the song came to an end, Manic turned his head and asked,

"Hey, shouldn't we be stopping soon?"

"Usually, but we're pretty close to someplace safer for us to stay. Ah, you can just see it on the horizon." Knuckles pointed forward. True enough, there was a black smudge over the crest of a far hill.

"Ah." Manic said as he saw it.

The sky was dark as they reached the doors of what was little less than a fortress. Knuckles pulled down on a bell rope and waited. A slot on the door opened and a human's head peered out. His face contorted a few times before he finally said.

"Cal?"

"Give me a sec." Knuckles said. Before anyone could ask a question he turned around and yelled out. "Yes, my real name's Calibar Anakin Felshio, but none of you are allowed to call me that. Sorry." He turned back to the human.

"That necessary?" The human asked.

"Unbelievably so. We need someplace to rest for the night before we continue."

"Where are you going?"

"Up north. I'm helping this band do a tour around the country." Knuckles pointed behind himself at Sonic and his siblings. "Showing them where to go, what to bring, how to deal with badland creatures, that sort of stuff."

"Oh. Strictly inconspicuous?"

"Like anything these days."

"Okay." The door opened, revealing the human. "Come on in and wait in the courtyard while I get the boss." Manic eyes flashed around as the rest of the kids filed into the… farm. Manic realized that the fortress was just a giant farm complex, probably supplying food for the rest of the Robotnik's empire. The farm workers who were still outside mostly went around the kids, only noticing them with passing interest. After a tedious fifteen minutes a human with glasses and a cane came out, smiling broadly. "Cal. Fancy seeing you again." He said, shaking Knuckles hand. "Your with a band now?"

"Acting as a guide." Knuckles said. The man looked around at the crowd.

"Does it really take this many people? They've got an army here."

"Kind of surprised myself. Publicity, accounting, electrical work… and protection from some of the things you might find in the wild. The guns are just a precaution, really. They don't even keep them loaded." The man nodded as he continued to look around the crowd. When the last worker went inside, the man looked Knuckles in the face and said quietly.

"Cal, I know your dead."

"Godric, I know you can see I'm not." Was Knuckles' reply. Godric shook his head.

"Freedom fighter. You've become a freedom fighter with a gun and some slogan and you've dragged these kids in with you."

"I wasn't the one who charged the theater. They brought themselves into this mess."

"You can't win."

"So unimaginative. Fifteen years is an amazingly long time without some kind of rebellion taking place. I'm only keeping these kids around until I can get them to a safe place. Then I start seeing what the North has been up to."

"You can't be sane."

"How so? The North already did a lot of maneuvering to have their royal heir become 'overseer' when they could easily have had a better politician. Instead, they kept a king in charge. The North does not like other people trying to control it." Godric sighed.

"You're not anything like I remember."

"I know."

"Have your army camp here. Do you need blankets?" Knuckles raised his eyebrows. "I want my old life back, frankly. Besides, would he believe me if I told him someone I knew was dead was raising an army against him? Also you didn't answer the question about the blankets."

"The cloaks work fine." Knuckles said. As everyone began to settle down and wrap their cloaks over them, Manic mentioned to Knuckles.

"This feels wrong."

"Your paranoid." Was Knuckles' reply.

"I kinda' live on paranoid."

"So do I." They both nodded at this sentiment.

Godric looked up from his book and through the window out at the courtyard one last time. _They should have known better._ Going down the hall, he went to the farms radio room and picked up a book listing a series of frequencies. He chose the frequencies labeled as "There is a hostile force present" and went over to the radio. As he tried to turn a knob, it fell out onto the floor. The door closed behind him, and the light turned on. Godric turned behind him to see Calibar and a green hedgehog that had been nearby.

"Ya' know, it's a bad idea to underestimate people's suspicion." 'The hedgehog said.

"I'm sorry." Godric said. _Cal is insane. He's going to kill me._ "If I didn't the punishment would be… be…"

"Actually this works out for everybody." Calibar said. "You are still a loyal servant, and we are still alive because we held you hostage."

"What about the Enforcers?" Godric asked. Knuckles cursed under his breath.

"You set cop-bots on the kids?"

"Just to keep them in place until the Robotnik arrived. I mean you told me the guns weren't loaded, so they couldn't really fight back."

"You didn't hear the part about charging the theater? These kids are lunatics." Knuckles pressed his palm into his face. "And I hid the ammo before we went after you."

"*BZZZT* YOU ARE UNDER CUSTODY. REMAIN STILL UNTIL TRANSPORTATION ARRIVES."

"What do we do now?" Amy asked to no one in particular. Sonia carefully tossed her something. Amy caught and looked down slowly. It was an ammo cartridge. Amy looked quizzically at Sonia.

"I didn't trust Knuckles." She tossed a few cartridges around the rest of the kids huddle. "Be careful as you shoot. Tracers are have a low recoil and a high accuracy, but fire five rounds with every trigger-pull. Don't aim in any friend's direction. Don't shoot wildly." Amy tried to put in the ammo cartridge. It took her awhile to find the lever for keeping it in. "The safety is above the trigger. Aim first. Cop-bots don't respond unless actually attacked." Amy saw kids on the ground pointing their guns up slowly. "Call out a number. They're one through ten from left to right. I have one."

"Two." Amy said, pointing at the Cop-bot second from the left. All the other numbers were called out."

"If we all hit at once, we won't have any trouble. Aim for the center." Sonia said. "Fire on three."

"Three." Amy lifted the gun to her head.

"Two." Amy lined her eye up with the sight.

"One." Amy put her finger on the trigger.

"Fire." Amy felt the gun twitching as she fired at the cop-bot. The first shots went too far up, hitting it in the head. She hurried to aim lower and fired again, going between its legs. The cop-bot was trying to aim with its broken sight sensors. Amy pulled up the gun's barrel and finally hit its center. The cop-bot stopped. Twisting to her right, she helped another kid take out the last intact cop-bot. Amy lowered her gun as she tried to bring her breathing under control.

"Everyone alright?" She yelled. Nobody said anything about blood or death. "Anybody hurt?" People checked around each other. Everyone was alright, though farm hands were begging to try and see what had happened.

Godric looked out the window.

"Tracer fire." Knuckles said. "I told you these kids were crazy. None of the bots fired either. Not bad. Now would you mind being a hostage for me?"

"Um, no, not at all."

Sonia kept her rifle sweeping over the area in front of her, which kept most of the farmhands from bothering the freedom fighters. She was very, very glad that she had thought to take the ST-17's manual, and to steal ammunition. Turned out to have been good thinking. Knuckles' yelling finally came.

"Alright, lucky day for you kids, you made it safe and sound. So, who stole the ammunition I expressly told you fools not to touch? I know it wasn't Manic."

"Me." Sonia said. Knuckles look at her oddly.

"Why?"

"In case you were incapacitated."

"Oh. Good thinking." Patting the farm's boss on the shoulder, Knuckles addressed everybody. "Now, because of my good friend here, we can all go back to sleep, and not panic like a barrel of monkeys." Nodding, the farm hands went back to their rooms. Cal hadn't been dangerous ever. Knuckles turned to the freedom fighters. They nodded. As Sonia lay back down on her cloak, she took the time to congratulate herself.

The next day, Sonic woke up around the same time as most of the farm hands. He clipped on his cloak, slipped his guitar on his back, and picked up his gun. He had tried to give it to someone else, but everyone seemed to think he deserved on, which was stupid because he couldn't even load it. He had fumbled with the cartridge until somebody had taken it and loaded her gun in about two seconds. He sat next to Manic and Sonia as he ate his cold breakfast.

"Nice job last night." He told Sonia. She shrugged it off.

"Anyone with a calm head could have done it."

"No." Manic interjected. "I know I wouldn't have tried to disobey Knuckles, and it's usually a fact of life that I'm on armed people's bad side. So, why'd ya _really_ steal ammo in the first place?"

"I didn't trust Knuckles."

"Sonic, can ya' cover me while I run for my life?"

"Sure." Sonic said.

As they left the farm and headed North, Dalin sidled up to Scrat and began chattering.

"Hey, did you see me take out that cop-bot last night? did you not see that?"

"You missed twice."

"Missed? I riddled it with bullets."

"After it had already been disabled."

"Maybe they put the core in a different place, just to be sneaky. You don't know."

"Never mind." Scrat grunted.

That night, Sonic began practicing loading the gun over and over again.

"Dude, you'll break it if you keep doing that." Manic said.

"Manic, unlike you I don't already have experience using guns."

"You think I used guns? If I used guns, I'd be more likely to kill someone. If I kill someone, then there would be more people wanting to kill _me_. Net loss." Sonic took out the cartridge and began shouldering the gun.

"Am I aiming at you?"

"Yes, so put it down before you shoot my eye out." Sonic lowered the gun and pointed it at the ground.

"I just want to be ready for the next time we're in a fight."

"Seriously, most of fighting with a gun is just convincing yourself to do it. And seeing as you're a nut who attacked a cop—bot with his bare hands, I really don't think that will be a problem."

"What about aiming?"

"Well, uh, cop-bots are big targets and…"

"Their centers aren't. Now can you let me practice without a running commentary?" Sonia sighed expressively and shook her head. _Boys_.

The Robotnik sniffed as he went into his old lab. _I have not been here for a long time._ He went over to three metal tubes, and pressed the button to open them. Three metal faces stared back at him.

"Devastator, Annihilator, Terminator. I have need of you once more. You did well last time, but it seems that fate saw fit to cheat you of victory. Remember the queen? The children survived. For the sake of peace and order, they must die." The three machines eye pieces were fully lit. Their master had finished his address, and was now giving them the relevant data. After he was done, they walked out into Mobius, turned, and walked north.

* * *

Author note: And that's why you haven't seen the Oracle of Delphius. And there's character development. Yay!

**I NEED REVIEWS!!**


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

They marched for more than a week after the fight at the farm. The food was running low, but they were assured to be close to their destination.

"I am completely certain." Knuckles said. "Either today or tomorrow you will see boulders dotting the landscape and-"

"Boulders kind of like those?" Someone pointed out.

"Exactly. We stop at the boulders." Knuckles said. The pace of the march picked up, suddenly eager to walk so that they could stop doing so. When they finally reached them, they found a fox boy sitting there, staring at them.

"Hi." Knuckles said. "We're not trying to invade." The fox kept looking at him confusedly. "I'm an echidna." Knuckles said.

"I'd figured that out." The fox said. Knuckles noted that his accent was rather soft for the area. "But I was waiting for you to explain why you've got an army with you if you're 'not trying to invade'." Knuckles was about to reply when Sonic cut him off.

"Can I try? Okay, so…"

"…Tails." The fox identified himself as.

"Tails, would you believe that, through no real fault of our own, a bunch of kids just happened to end up too far on the wrong side of the law, and our only real obvious option was to follow mister charisma here, who decided to give us all guns?"

"Is that a guitar on your back."

"Yeah, but…"

"And that green hedgehog, he plays drums."

"Why…"

"You're the rebels?"

"Like we could have hid it."

"You guys are awesome."

"How would you know?"

"I mean, you were listed as disabling five Enforcers without weapons, so I thought you were just thugs but, you're not."

"Comforting."

"Excuse me," Knuckles interjected. "It's good to know about our wider audience, but we would really appreciate it if you could help assure the townsfolk about the whole not invading them idea."

"They won't listen."

"What about your parents?"

"Look, nobody would. I'm a mutant." To emphasize the point, Tails pulled up his two namesakes from behind him.

"Oh dear." Knuckles said.

"Exactly. So I'd find some other way to convince them." Getting up off the rock, the boy turned around and walked away up North.

"Okay, everyone start packing the weapons. When we're done we'll have lunch." Knuckles said. Everyone listened.

Tails took a draught from his canteen when he reached his home in the Mounds. It was a bit of a walk from the rock to his home, but the solitude was worth it. Even after he had gotten the fence up, it only reminded him constantly of how hated he was. Maybe the women who let him have scraps were nice, but they only did it out of pity. Oh, and the hedgehog woman was always nice, but she was too busy trying to make a living to bother with him. He was pondering what to begin working on when someone came running through the mounds yelling:

"Mobians. Flying robots. Flying robots… shooting Mobians." He stopped when he realized only Tails was there "Oh". He said and turned to run off. Tails stood there a few seconds, before realizing that he should be doing something. Scrambling to open the larger gate, he then went back to a large object, covered in some canvas material he had found in the Mounds. He threw the covering off with a single messy sweep, far enough away to be safe. He plugged in the now-uncovered machine's back-up engine, and pushed the more stable, unfinished one away. Time was of the essence. Climbing into the cockpit, he began the start up process.

"Engine on? Check. Wing coordination? Check. Pilot ready for takeoff?" He put on a pair of goggles and gulped. "no" He turned on the propeller and prayed that he had gotten the sequence for lifting off right. The machine began moving forward, on the straight away he had spent months preparing. He hadn't had much else better to do. He checked the speedometer; He was almost at flight speed. As the needle passed over that point he pulled back the controls and waited for the machine to lift. It jerked up once. Twice. One the third time it finally lifted off the ground completely. And didn't fall. Tails grinned. Of course it worked.

As a fox ran to the village to tell the news he heard a roar behind him. He turned to see a four winged machine fly out of the Mounds, with Tails sticking out of the back. _Looney._

The Robotnik watched as his Corvus units darted around the rock formation shooting at the rebels. He hated the thought of having to see them die, but if he could not watch the act then he had no right ordering it. Then one of the Corvus units stopped functioning. There was no reason he could think of; the units had all been charged before they were released, a few kilometers away, and the rebels had appeared to have been unarmed when he attacked. He cycled through video feeds until he saw the impossible: a flying object. The unit projecting the footage was promptly disabled.

Knuckles glanced up as he crawled along the ground. The flying robots were still distracted by the other machine, which had even bigger guns than them. He should have known about the flying robots. They made sense, as rapidly deployed assassins, but obviously they hadn't been considered viable to hunt him. He reached one of the cases and opened it.

"The flight mechanisms would have massive energy requirements, almost too much for those small bodies" He heard someone say. It was Sonia. "And that coupled with a larger computer to handle all the calculations required for the flight, means they would have to…" A radio in the case began to hiss.

"Hey, someone else has one of these." A voice said from it. Knuckles grabbed it and yelled in.

"Tails? Is that you in that thing?"

"Aye. Cool, isn't it."

"Could you do a favor and try aiming once in a while?"

"Hey, this is my first time. Look, I'm spotting this brown thing over the hill, maybe one or two kilometers off by rough triangulation. Anyways, I think it's being used as a nodule to network these robots…"

"Could someone go trash it?" Knuckles yelled.

"I'll go. Two kilos doesn't sound bad." Sonic said as he ran past, grabbing a gun and a cartridge.

"Well yes, theoretically with the proper-"

"Shut up, keep shooting." Knuckles said to the radio.

Tails twisted his plane around one of the robots as it tried to adjust and fire at him. The attempt was too much for the robot's balancing devices and it started to fall from the sky. He saw another come in front of him, and he pushed down the firing stud on the plane's joystick. High caliber bullets spat out from the plane's twin machine guns, and tore the unfortunate device to pieces. Tails smiled to himself. These were the work of a supposed genius?

Sonic crested the hill and saw what had to be the machine they had mentioned. With one last effort he began to make his way down to it. He had put all his effort into the run, and it had exhausted him. But he had to stop the Robotnik's machines before they could kill someone. As he got closer, an out-jut on the brown lump of metal swiveled towards him. He barely ducked before the turret fired. He began running around it as the machine's turrets spat lead at him. _I can't do this forever._ Wedging his tracer against his elbow, Sonic pointed inward at the machine and fired blindly, trying to keep running. And then the machine's firing stopped. Sonic looked at the brown device. There were only a few patches of holes in it, but he at least had the time to close in. As he got closer to the device, he could make out where the flying robots attached, and where the main computers were. Pointing the tracer up, he used the rest of his ammo clip to make sure it was shut down.

_Thud_

Sonic turned to look at what had made the noise. One of the flying robots had fallen on the hill and lazily rolled down. He was luckier than he had already thought.

Sonic panted as he made it back to the rocks they had come from.

"That was fast." Knuckles said.

"I like to run." Sonic replied. "Is everyone alright?" Knuckles shook his head. Pointing behind him, he showed Sonic a kid lying dead on the grass.

It was a solemn procession that entered the town. None of the freedom fighters spoke, respecting others' silence, and struggling with the meaning of their first death. They were led by town's folk to the grave yard, and were given the tools to bury their fallen comrade.

Sonic stood apart from the people who had known the dead kid, watching the makeshift funeral, with kids as the audience, kids as the gravediggers, even a kid as the speaker. The town's minister had offered to lead, but the kid's friends insisted that he would have wanted a Masionic funeral. Sonia and Manic were with their brother.

"It's my fault." Sonic said. "I said we should do the concert, that's what led us into this mess. I don't even know who he is." Manic shifted uneasily.

"His name was Sam. A gangster, in case you thought otherwise. Very good kid, very religious; only did what he needed to for his younger brother, never tried to hurt anybody. Let me escape a couple times. Also had good reflexes, not one to get hit. I can tell ya' he died taking that bullet for someone else."

"Sonic, you can't blame yourself." Sonia said. "The Robotnik was probably ready to attack at anytime. He would have done it no matter what we chose. He's the one that's choosing to kill. Not you." Sonic ignored his sister.

"What about you?" He asked Knuckles. "Why aren't you saying something for him?"

"Do you really think they'd let me?" Knuckles said. On the far side of the onlookers, Yona watched Amy stand stone-faced, leaning on her hammer.

"You're taking it well." Yona said.

"There's going to be more." Was Amy's reply. "The fighting won't stop, and we can't do anything about it."

The rest of that day slogged to an end in a blur. Eventually, the freedom fighters forced themselves to retire to the grassy mounds to the village's west.

"What do we tell Tails?" someone asked.

"We tell him he saved our lives. We don't need to burden him too." They all lay wondering what tomorrow would bring.

When Tails had been able to land the plane, he had gone euphoric. It had worked. It all had worked exactly as he planned it to. He had put together machines before, put none of them had worked exactly as he wanted to. Invariably something might go wrong, such as a piece of code repeating itself in his miniature robot, or the color not working on his viewer. It took forever for the wind crank to charge anything, because he couldn't put it high enough, and the energy collecting panel had been broken by a large rock. But the plane, the ridiculously complicated twenty different system do-one-thing-wrong-and-you-die plane, that worked. Exactly as he… Tails sighed. It had been the backup source. Anything worked if it was involved. He could tie two sticks to it and say that it made food, and it probably would. Going to the side of the plane, he took out the back up source and put it on the ground. Picking up his main hope for the plane's power source, he went back to work putting it together.

The Robotnik rubbed his forehead.

"They destroyed them." Draggo said simply.

"Yes, but how? They were unarmed when I attacked."

"Maybe it has something to do with the giant flying thing shooting at them."

"There was no way they could have built that. They didn't have the resources, they didn't have the time, and they couldn't have moved it with them. Someone already in the area must have built it."

"Well that settles it then. The North built it, and you didn't notice."

"Why?" Draggo's eyebrows rose.

"Did you seriously ask why the North, as in the hate-anyone-not-a-fox-God-help-you-if-your-Mobian North, would secretly have a machine to counter your robots, and use it to help out rebels?"

"I was hoping that wouldn't be the answer. Very well then. It seems they will have to play their part in helping the world soon."

* * *

Author Note: To make things clear: Mobius and the North are somewhat based of England and Scotland respectively, but not to the point where I look silly talking about things I have no actual clue about. This is because there are hedgehogs and foxes in Great Britain.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

A purple hedgehog knocked on the door with one free hand, balancing a basket full of clothes in her other. A fox woman answered the door.

"Here's your laundry, miss." The hedgehog said, handing the basket over.

"Thank you, Aleena. So what do you think about the new Mobians?" Aleena shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know."

Knuckles sat across from the minister and the mayor of Knot hole, the town. The only person he had brought with him was Shanks, because he at least sounded sensible. One of the kids would probably do something stupid.

"So, what are so many Mobians doing way up North?" The mayor asked. His accent was much thicker than Tails, and unusual for the town. He probably moved from farther north during the take-over.

"Really, this is just over a misunderstanding with the law."

"In the sense of the law thinking it was in charge?"

"More of the law trying to execute three kids."

"Devils." The minister said under his breath.

"During a concert."

"Oh! Is the band still with you?" The minister's ears lifted instant.

"Father, I really don't think they would be in the mood…"

"Really, I think everybody needs something to lighten them up a bit."

"They haven't really practiced."

"Unrehearsed music sounds more natural."

"And it's a rather _different_ style…"

"I enjoy cultural exchange."

"And the lyrics tend to be a bit… modern."

"Well, we can't stop progress."

"I agree with Father. Sounds like a good way for you to introduce yourselves, seeing as you won't be going soon." The mayor said.

"You could tell?" Knuckles asked.

"This is the safest place to be. Where else would you go?"

"Well I was planning to keep going, and see if the North was planning anything." Knuckles said, standing up. "But yeah, I was planning to leave the kids here."

"They'll have to work for a living."

"Well, that's their problem."

The three were currently teaching themselves about Mobian military history, with Sonia instructing them. They literally had even less to do than when they were marching.

"So, the king during the Great War was… Vandemar?" Sonic said.

"Vandire; Vandire. V-A-N-D-I-R-E. It can't be that hard to remember."

"Okay so, the king was Vand_ire_, his older son fought, whose name was-"

"Okay you three, get up and start getting ready." Knuckles said as he walked in.

"For what?" Manic asked.

"The mayor and the minister both want you to do a concert tonight, to help introduce yourselves to the town."

"I really don't think these two are in the mood." Manic said, pointing to his siblings. Sonic winced as he remembered the event of yesterday.

"They said it would help lighten everyone up."

"And we haven't practiced in a long time."

"Apparently the worse you play the more natural you sound."

"And the style's probably a bit different than they're used to."

"They are looking for cultural exchange."

"And the lyrics tend to be a bit… _modern_."

"'you can't stop progress'"

"Well then, if the innuendos make their heads explode, it's not our fault." Knuckles started to walk off, but turned at the last second and said.

"One more thing."

"What?"

"Cover the gems. They look suspicious."

Aleena rubbed the pants vigorously, before pushing them back into the wash bucket. Taking a moment of pause, she groaned and straightened her back. She really should be more grateful about her life: managing to stay ahead of Ivo's invasion, surviving the journey up to the North, and being able to fit in. She had heard so many horror stories about how racist people were in the North; she really shouldn't have been surprised that they weren't all true.

That fact left a bitter taste in her mouth when she thought about how they treated Miles. His dad ran off in shame, they kept calling him "the mutant" or "Tails". She had been planning to adopt him after his mother died, but he ran off to the Mounds after the funeral, and refused to come back with her. Even at four the fox had started to become too heavy for a grown hedgehog to carry. She was left just supporting herself, and bringing him food whenever she could. Really, her life had been good.

As dusk crept closer, Sonic began readily tuning his guitar. He made sure that every note played perfectly before he got up to go to the town hall, where his band was expected to play. As he saw the rest of the crowd leaving, (they had, after all, gone to the first concert), He noticed somebody who wasn't moving.

"Hey, ya' coming or not?" Manic asked seeing Sonic walk in the opposite direction.

"I just need a sec'."

"Shoulda' gone earlier."Manic muttered as he walked away.

"Hey, don't you wanna' come?" Sonic asked, leaning against the metal fence.

"They wouldn't let me." Tails replied looking up from the box that he appeared to be poking.

"They're hosting about five hundred Mobians. I don't think they'll really mind you being there."

"Yeah, they will mind that there is a 'perversion of nature' there."

"Look, I promise you that if anyone starts messing with you, I will personally deal with them.

"Pull the other one, it's got bells."

"Look, I personally attacked a robot once, using my bare hands."

"You wear gloves." Sonic took the time to look at his gloves. His wounds had healed during the march, but by then he had gotten rather used to wearing them. He carefully pulled the right one off, and showed it to Tails. The hand still had a scar where he had cut himself on a sharp edge of the robot's head.

"That's why I wear gloves." Sonic said. Tails walked over to the fence to get a closer look, and his face lifted as he imagined the hedgehog throwing himself at a robot, tearing it apart with nothing but ferocity to rely on.

"Do you wanna' know why I did that? Because it was attacking my band mates, whom I had only known for a month. Are you still sure you don't wanna' come?"

"I might think about it." Tails said.

"Okay. Just didn't like seeing you stuck in this cage." Sonic said, before walking off, putting his glove back on.

"What took you so long?" Sonia asked.

"I was talking with Tails." Sonic said.

"Oh… that's very nice of you."

"I just thought I needed to do it, you know?"

"Hey, are we playing this gig or not?" Manic called.

"Coming." The three walked up to the front of the "hall", which had turned out to be nothing more than an outdoor amphitheater. Sonic centered himself as Sonia set up her keyboard, and Manic positioned himself behind a drum set consisting of two over-turned buckets, a tambourine, and a well balanced sword. Sonic took a step forward and began to talk.

"I would like to dedicate this concert to Sam, who died trying to help another person." He couldn't think of a better way to say it. He began hitting the notes for the first song, something soft, slow, and thoughtful, trying to reflect the mood that everyone had.

Tails edged up to the back of the watching crowd, going closer to the Aleena. He knew she wouldn't mind him.

"Oh, hi Miles." She said, noticing him.

"Tails." he mumbled.

"Sorry, Tails." She said. They listened as Sonic and his band brought the song to a close. They said something about how the next song was old, but not really that old, and finally gave up trying to explain it and just played. The song was upbeat and bouncy, and much more happy-sounding than the last. Apparently Aleena knew the words, and she began dancing randomly. Tails stared for a few seconds, before just letting her have her fun. As the song came to an end she slowed down and sighed.

"I love that song. I had it played at my wedding." Aleena said as she rubbed her eyes. "They remind me of my kids." Tails just nodded. Aleena had told him about her kids before. He had yelled at Aleena the first time for doing exactly what his father had done to him, but he eventually understood that she had been scared, confused, and couldn't see a better choice. "Enough crying about the past, let's just enjoy the show."

"_Hey!_" Sonic yelled as he dove into a guitar solo. He hadn't played in far too long, and had almost forgotten how much he loved doing this. Heck, most of the townsfolk were actually enjoying the music.

Knuckles pace around the edge of the Mounds, looking south. The town's minister came up from behind.

"Not what you expected?" Knuckles asked.

"Yes. Say, I had wanted to ask this before, but have you been here before? You look familiar, and there aren't a whole lot of echidnas that come through here."

"I passed by here when I moved to Mobius. It's how I knew this place would be safe."

"It must have been an odd path you took."

"I wasn't heading anywhere paticular, just trying to…"

"See someplace new? I know the feeling." The minister flexed his legs. "Well I should do something. Maybe see if the church windows have broken yet."

"Hmph. Bye, Paul."

"Bye."

The Robotnik personally monitored Annihilator as it navigated through the dark streets of Knothole. Somehow the locals were letting such a raucous performance happen, and it helped cover Annihilator's journey. The machine had been designed to utilize stealthy movement and the highest level of coordination of any machine he had ever built. Still, it was a large robot, which would no doubt be suspicious.

His force was prepared to take the town, but doing so would break the treaty he had made with the North. They had agreed to follow him as long he didn't actually rule them. He had known the pact was mocking him, but he hadn't wanted the North looming over him so early in his empire's career. He would start treating them to full assimilation soon after this, probably, but for now he needed them happy, which meant he didn't want them knowing about this little assault.

The town was small and backwater, meaning there would be a single radio at most. He could form a circle around the town to stop people fleeing, but he needed the radio to be out. Thus, Annihilator had been called to action early. After surveying most of the city, the robot found the radio tower in a small building next to the second biggest house in the town. The door was locked. Bending one claw, Annihilator sent out a lock-pick from its hand, and quickly disengaged the padlock.

Going in it stopped before the radio set. Even such an precise robot was not designed for working delicate machinery. Sighing, the Robotnik told it to stick a claw through the set. Annihilator then left the building, redoing the lock on its way out. People were beginning to trail away from the performance, making the maneuvering harder. Annihilator reached the edge of town, but an echidna was apparently keeping a look out in the area. He hadn't been there on Annihilator's way in. The robot could kill him, but that would give the rebels more time to prepare. The Robotnik told it to wait until it could leave undetected.

Tails leaned on Aleena's arm as she walked him home.

"Can't you carry me?" he asked, yawning.

"Ha. Your almost as big as I am."

"No; I'm just a midget."

"Your ten years old. You'll be bigger when you grow up." She left Tails at the gate and hugged him before saying goodbye.

"Hey, Tails." The fox turned to see Sonic, guitar slung on his back again. "See, coming wasn't such a bad thing. You got to dance with a girl."

"Ah, she was just some woman who likes to look after me." Tails said, rubbing the edge of his snout.

"No, the other one." Tails rubbed the back of his head and tried to look away.

"Don't know what you're talking about. Must have been someone else." Sonic chuckled at the embarrassed expression on the fox's face. Sonic took a look at Tails' home.

"I know this isn't important, but where did you get the parts build all this." Tails stood up straighter, glad to have something else to talk about.

"Oh. I got them from the Mounds of course."

"These things?" Sonic asked pointing at the giant green knolls around him.

"Yep."

"How?"

"They're junk!" Tails said with a grin knowing something the hedgehog didn't.

"How would trash do you any good? And why is it covered in grass."

"It's trash from before the Armageddon."

"You're joking."

"No. Ask any one in town. Archaeologists used to come through here all the time, spending quite a bit of money while they were at it, just so they could look at the stuff in here. Stopped being worth it when the Robotnik took over the country.

That was before I was born. When I started living here I… didn't have a lot to do, so I started looking in them. Nothing works, of course, but most of the stuff below the first few layers is very well preserved. Found a few books, after a while figured out how to read Old English, and started teaching myself how to build stuff."

Tails yawned.

"Well, looks like we should be going to bed." Sonic waved bye as Tails went to his ramshackle home, and then Sonic went to find a comfortable patch of grass.

* * *

Author's Note: Yep. Nothing happened. The stuff people were talking about is important though. Oh yeah, and someone was introduced.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Tails yawned as he woke up. He ate one of the potatoes he had saved, and started checking his different radios to see if they had picked up any new signals. They hadn't, so he went to the viewer he had made that picked up the signals that the Robotnik used. Knothole was far from anywhere with a connection to the Robotnik's network, so he usually couldn't receive a clear connection. Today he saw a brilliantly clear, detailed picture detailing something called photosynthesis. That would mean the Robotnik had a signal node nearby…

Tails put several curses to good use as he scrambled out of his shack. He didn't bother yelling to wake them. Instead he went to plane, hooked up the main source, remembered to open the gate just in case, and then went back and climbed into the plane and turned it on.

Knuckles opened his eyes as he heard the mechanical roar. It was Tails' machine. Why was he turning it on now? He looked at the two kids curled on the ground. There went his guards. He looked up and saw the robot.

It almost looked like a human in armor, but it showed the same styling as a cop-bot. The machine was painted black, and had an enormous block on its back, with circles coming from the bottom of the pack. Its arms ended in the same large claws as a cop-bot's, but the gun was on the outside of its right hand. Knuckles flicked his gun to his shoulder and turned the safety to single-shot. He shot the head, but the robot only turned in response, showing its beaked face. It lifted its gun-arm and fired, but Knuckles was already throwing himself to the ground. The bullet missed by centimeters. The robot turned and jumped into the air, flames coming from its back.

_Fire in the sky._ Knuckles thought. _He's sent the hunters._

Aleena had left her house because of the noise to see what was happening. She saw a black figure lift into the air. _Fire in the sky._ She thought. _He's sent the hunters. Ivo knows I'm here._

_ Running, panting, crying, covering. Why? He wasn't dead, was he? Shooting didn't always kill someone. Brushen couldn't be dead. Why would Ivo do that? Crying. They kept crying. She had to hide them. The song was the only thing with her. Gunshots. They were close again, the things hunting her: a giant in the alley ways, a killer in the streets, and the fire in the sky that was always watching._

Tails saw the robot fly up and sent the plane forward and upward. There wasn't time to worry, just act. Everything in him wanted to scream this time around. The robot was already flying away as he lifted off.

"What in the blazes is all this noise about?" The Mayor stomped towards the Mounds in hastily put on clothes, not having seen Tails fly off. Knuckles walked over to him briskly.

"A robot, uncommon model." He said

"In the North? That's illegal, isn't it?" The mayor replied.

"Doesn't matter. There was one, and there are almost definitely more, seeing as it only fired one shot before running. Tails is pursuing it."

"What does the mutant think he can do?"

"I don't know. I just saw him do it."

"Well, what's your plan if there are more robots?"

"Fight. We do want to live, after all. We'll have to do it in town to have the best chances. I think they'll leave your people alone if you don't try to attack."

"What do you expect us to do?"

"The Robotnik's machines are built to withstand most small arms. The guns you have won't do you any good." The mayor nodded.

"I'll tell people to start getting to the church. We've got a radio set, so we can send a warning to someone that Robotnik's breaking the treaty."

"There's a plan for that? Impressive."

"Also, I'll have our doctor start setting up in the basement."

"Thank you. I have someone who can help him. There's going to be a lot of my people… hurt." Knuckles said bowing his head. "I'll get my freedom fighters ready." Knuckles walked back to the Mounds.

_Jake's cold body was covering him. He pushed it off after the gunfire had stopped. He looked around. The rest were also dead._

Tails pulled the plane up again to follow the robot. It fired a cluster of bullets back at him. Tails forced himself to keep the plane still as the bullets flew past his head. This wasn't "fun" like the last time. What had he been thinking the last time? He could die. _He could die._ He began adjusting the radio to see if he could pick up anything from the robot.

"Who is this? Who is manning this machine?" The voice wasn't addressing him, but Tails decided to answer. He lowered his voice to sound older.

"This is Miles Prower. Who are you?"

"Who am I? I am the Robotnik."

"Riiight."

"Why are you attacking my machine?"

"Cause you're a jerk. Oh, by the way, that last batch could have used some work." The robot had stopped shooting, and its weaving had begun to sink into a steady pattern. Tails began lining up his sight to hit it.

"I couldn't know someone had made a large-scale flying machine like yours. The power required… I couldn't do it."

"Like that's a surprise."

"What do you mean? I am one of the greatest geniuses in the world."

"That's not what your mum said."

"What? My mum? How old are you? Drop that fake voice." Tails complied willingly.

"Oh. Ten." He jammed down the firing stud, and the spray of bullets tore into the robot.

"Now." Knuckles said. "A robot was recently spotted by Tails, who is currently pursuing it. Hopefully, this can give us time to prepare for whatever is coming next. The Robotnik will go to any means to ensure that any trace of what we did is removed from history. We are an embarrassment, and he will not let us remain. I fully believe that he has sent an army to destroy us. We can stop them, however.

His full-scale military units are all off in the east, fighting other countries. The only robots he will have to send after us are cop-bots, which we can fight. Keep in cover, never fire from the same place twice. If they know where you are they can kill you. We will stay in the houses, and attack them from as many sides as possible to confuse them. Aim for the centers. Stay with the people you know and can depend on to help you. Make the Robotnik pay for every step his army takes in this town." Everybody nodded. Knuckles turned to the three.

"Sonic, Manic, Sonia. The robot that was spotted was one of a set that was used to hunt the queen. How I know this can be discussed later. If they kill you it will be a blow to everyone here, and discourage other countries from fighting." Sonic shifted uncomfortably. "You are not to join the fight.

You will remain here, hiding in the Mounds for the duration of the battle. I will be attacking the hunters to keep them away from you. Am I clear?"

"Yes." Sonia said.

"Yeah." Manic said.

"No. We should be-" Sonic began.

"Let me explain it then." Knuckles walked up to Sonic and looked him in the face. "The only things important about you are that you are the heirs to the Mobian throne, and are part of a group that resisted the Robotnik. You're position makes us have much more leverage with the leaders of other countries. We will need those other countries if we want to overthrow Robotnik. With that, the possession of three more gunners in the fight is not worth the chance of losing my only political asset. Stay here." He pointed to the ground. Turning away, Knuckles addressed the rest of the freedom fighters.

"Now, in the bags are sets of radios. I will hand these out to people I trust the most, these people will spread out…

Tails pulled hard to the left as the robot in front of him burst into flames. The plane curved around in the air, and Tails was able to see the ground. It was covered in purple domes, steadily shifting in the same direction Tails was headed: North. Tails began to regret what he said to the Robotnik, especially the part about his mum.

"How dare he?" Draggo muttered. "He was talking about your mom."

"I never liked my mother." The Robotnik said. "Selfish woman, didn't care about what happened to her own children."

"Oh. Well, your deploy-an-elite-team-of-robots strategy doesn't seem to have gone so well."

"Annihilator was designed for reconnaissance." The Robotnik said. The wolf only grinned in reply. "He did what I needed him to do. I can watch the town with the amount of Enforcers I have at my disposal."

"Pride comes before the fall."

"Pride? I am relying on facts. You should try it some time."

Everyone heard the roar as Tails came back, around when Knuckle was halfway through assigning radios. Knuckles nodded as the two-tailed fox walked over unsteadily and saluted.

"Robot intercepted and trashed. Advance report of the enemy force: maybe two hours away, and more fethers than I know how to count."

"Wash your mouth kid. Ah, you're back." Knuckles said as the mayor walked over. "Did you get everyone to the church?" The mayor nodded. "Good. What about the radio?"

"Trashed. Claw marks going straight through."

"We know why the robot was here then. The Robotnik doesn't want the king finding out." Knuckles said. "Tails, can you fix the radio?"

"I'd have to see it."

"Fix it and send out the signal. Don't leave the shack. Troops, this means we can't count on support anytime soon. We will have to do this by ourselves." Everyone nodded. "Now, Shanks, follow the mayor back to the church. They're setting up a field hospital there, and could probably use all the help they can get. You, with the hammer and the random hugging disorder, leave it here; I can't have it weighing you down…" Knuckles finished up the last of his instructions, and then everyone dispersed.

As he stepped over to a house, the Oracle of Rock let the words play over his lips. _Random hugging disorder._ A crush? And Tails' machine? The fox boy did seem very abused, at least mentally. The Oracle breathed a sigh of relief as he finally remembered some of his own prophecy. They were going to win. At least they would destroy the machines. He would probably live, because he couldn't die without making a new Oracle, right?

Amy repositioned herself against the wall for the tenth time.

"Stop twitching." Yona said.

"I can't help it." Amy shot back. "I don't have my hammer."

"Why do you still have that? You've been lugging it halfway across the isle, and yet you've never used it."

"It's comforting."

"Comforting?"

"Yeah. I mean I used it when we… I started all this. I had it with me when we destroyed those cop-bots at the farm, and when we were attacked at the rocks. Do you remember what that one girl, Lisa, said? I wasn't dangerous without the hammer." Yona shook her head. She twitched herself.

"When are they going to come?" Yona yelled suddenly. "Why can't we just get it over with?"

Tails glanced at the opened up radio and all the random hunks of metal and wire. What was he supposed to do? What went where? He should know how to do this. Why couldn't he think of what to do? Why wasn't he doing anything?

Knuckles looked at the kid shivering in the corner. He knew that his presence was the only thing keeping the kid from running.

"The Robotnik's going to surround the town." Knuckles said. "He'll have his robots kill anyone trying to escape." It wasn't the right thing to say: The kid started trying to look anywhere but at Knuckles, but his eyes kept going back to Knuckles' face.

"What's your problem?" The kid said. "You're just standing there. How can you do that?" Knuckles looked away.

_He kneeled down in front of the body, poking at the hole in its head. He pulled black and looked at the blood in disbelief. He shivered. They really were dead. Regoban had killed them all. All he wanted to do was scream, but he didn't._

"When you've seen your friends die you'll know how to hide everything inside of you." Knuckles said.

"Hide?"

"Yeah. Scrat, you seem to be doing fine."

"My dad taught me how to shoot." The weasel replied

"Ah." Knuckles said.

Manic drummed his hands against the mound. Sonia looked at him.

"I thought you were used to fighting?" She said angrily.

"No, I just said I had experience with it." Sonic was facing south on the top of the mound. He shook his head and slid down. He tapped his foot, waiting for the battle to pass him by.

Aleena rushed to pack the bag she had prepared in case she ever needed to run again. She hadn't expected Ivo to find her here. The mayor had told everyone to take shelter in the church, but she knew she would stick out like a sore thumb if it was searched. No, she would have to hide here. Everyone else thought more robots were coming, but she _knew_ they were. And once again, it seemed like she would have to rely on an echidna to help her.

_She stumbled to the side, against an alley wall._

Clunk

_ She looked behind her. There was the metal brute, ready to kill her and her children. A gun fired, but no bullets hit her. Glowing dashes rained from somewhere behind the robot as there was a whir of cracking noises. It turned to deal with the new threat, and Aleena ran off._

_ After a few minutes of running she stopped to catch her breath again. Her child that had been crying had gone back to sleep. Her arms were killing her, but Aleena knew she was almost there. She heard panting as an echidna walked into the alley and slumped against a wall. He looked to be an older teenager, but he was holding a tracer, and was covered with bloodstains. _

_ "Did you…" She began to ask._

_ "I'll kill them." He said quietly. She glanced down and then back at him in brief panic. "I kill every one of Regoban's machines." _

_ "Good luck." She muttered as he crept off. He would distract them. She couldn't stop him. She waited a second and then began her run again._


	13. Chapter 12

It's Back! Finally! I didn't give up right as things got interesting!

**

* * *

Chapter 12**

Hours stretched out forever. Some people tried to sing, but it quickly died away. Finally, they came: an advancing wall of purple metal, every one of them looking the same. They were the result of hours spent building one specific part over and over, or putting the same two parts together, multiplied ad infinitum at a pressing rate, to create the army of robots before them. Knuckles bowed his head: he had seen this sight before.

_Row upon row of strange machines stood before them as Regoban's distorted voice droned on about his mad coup._

_ "But you swore to protect the royal family; therefore I know you will not side with me. Sadly, you cannot be part of this perfect world. This is necessary." _

_ And then the robots fired._

Knuckles picked up the radio.

"Hold you fire," He said. "Hold your fire." Everyone listened. No one wanted to be the first target of the mindless machines. Scrat watched the horde of purple giants, and said softly:

"We're all gonna' die." Knuckles tensed, but made his muscles relax.

"Hit the ground." He yelled. Everyone with him ducked. He then took the courtesy of firing the first shot. It was good, catching a cop-bot as its torso was turned ever so slightly. It stopped moving, and the rest of the army turned towards the source. Knuckles ducked below the window as a fusillade of bullets came at him. Suddenly the army shifted in the other direction.

Knuckles and the kids with him took the break to shoot at the army while its backs were exposed. The robots turned back towards them, only to get hit from behind again…

* * *

The Robotnik began sorting through programs for his machines.

"You should have divided them earlier, when you, you know, had time." Draggo said. The Robotnik yelled at him.

"Time? I had an empire to run while dealing with these infants." They both were very quiet.

"System." Draggo coughed.

"Dagh. All the propaganda is getting to me."

* * *

Knuckles and the kids with him shot at the exposed backs of the robot army once again, but this time only a few turned towards them. Knuckles ducked below the window and motioned for the kids to do the same. Bullets rained through the window and embedded themselves in the back wall.

"We have to move." Knuckles said. "We have to hit them from where they aren't watching." He looked around at his fighters. Scrat wasn't there, meaning he had left on his own accord. Knuckles crawled toward the next window, and carefully raised the gun over the edge, but kept his body below. No bullets came through. Knuckles risked putting up his hand. Still no bullets came. He motioned for the rest of the fighters to come over to him.

"We should be good for moving to another building. I'll cover you from here." Knuckles said.

* * *

Amy and Yona sat on the floor, watching bullets come from both sides of them. Obviously, shooting from both windows had been a poor choice.

"We're gonna' die, we're gonna' die." Yona screamed.

"No we're not." Amy said. She pulled out the radio Knuckles had given her, though she didn't know why, and turned it on. "I need a distraction, at the house with both windows being shot at."

"Which one?" A voice responded.

"The… give me a sec." Amy yelled out: "Can anyone describe where we are?"

"Yeah." Someone said. Amy tossed the radio to them, and they started talking about pink flowers on the roof. A few tracer rounds came through the window and hit the floor, but eventually one of the robots was hit, making them turn. Amy popped her head over the window sill, and began firing at the cop-bots in front of them. The rest of the fighters with her followed suit, but only used the one window.

* * *

Tails tied one end of the spool of wire to the circuit board. When he had eventually convinced himself to start working, he had decided that he would need to take the radio apart just to see what was broken. After that he was stuck trying to fix it with only his memory to work on. He had begun to use the margins of the code book so he could keep notes on what he was doing. Really, if he could get back to his home…

Tails pushed the idea away. He knew he'd get shot if he left the shack. Besides he was pretty sure he had done everything he needed. The Robotnik probably hadn't considered at the time that someone in Knothole could fix the radio, but that was lucky for Tails. He took the microphone and turned on the radio, adjusting its frequency until he heard something.

"Broken Treaty." He said into it.

"What the? Find a different, frequency you idiot. There's a code book isn't there?" a voice responded.

"Sorry." Tails went over to the book, and began looking for the frequency of the nearest town.

* * *

The Robotnik tapped his fingers in irritation. He had known the rebels would be able to fight back at least somewhat, but they were coordinated, planned… winning, for a given definition. Better than even the Tsarminians usually managed.

If the rebels weren't in buildings, though, they would lose almost any advantages they had. Luckily, he had sent Terminator, a machine perfect for clearing them out. Really, it wouldn't do any good where it currently was, and he knew that the rebels wouldn't have anything able to damage it. He directed it towards the first house, with the least fire coming from it.

* * *

Knuckles turned as he felt the building shake. How was that happening? He tilted his head as the house shook again. On the third blow the far wall was broken open. His eyes widened. Standing in the doorway was a robot he had attacked nearly fifteen years before then.

It was bulkier than most of its counter parts, but not taller. Its body was hunched over, with its head nearly level with its shoulders. Instead of claws, it had bulky hands, with fingers that seemed to compress together as one, and each hand had a gun mounted on the back of it. For some unfathomable reason, the machine had been painted deep blue.

Knuckles didn't bother to try and shoot it. He had tried that fifteen years ago, and it hadn't worked then. He ran out of the house, to the next one over. As he ducked in and slammed the door shut, he yelled.

"Molotov Cocktail. I need one fast." The people there shook their heads. He cursed, wishing he had kept a few of the gangsters with him. A fist tore through the wall next to the door, and the door swung open. The machine walked in, pointing its arm mounted guns. Before it could fire, Knuckles charged it, not knowing his own plan.

Terminator's programming told it to use its fists against a close range target, so it did. It lifted both fists and slammed down, but Knuckles jumped to the left, leaving it to hit nothing but ground. The robot lifted its right fist and tried to bring it down on him, but Knuckles sidestepped back in front. The robot brought up its left arm and brought it down. Knuckles stepped to the side, flinched as the massive hand came down to his side, and then stepped on it.

The robot tried to attack with its other arm, but it couldn't bend in far enough. It tried to lift its arm, but it didn't have the capability to lift both its weighted hand and the fully grown echidna. Knuckles looked at the blue head.

"Regoban, this is for all of them." Knuckles shifted his gun to the other hand, aimed for open crack between the head and torso, and punched his brass knuckle in. The spikes pushed into the crack, and Knuckles began to twist his fist. If the momentum-based arm motors were any basis for judging the designers forethought, there wouldn't be much keeping the robot's head on. He groaned as the knuckle began to bite into his hand, but he kept twisting. There was a snap, and the head jerked up noticeably.

* * *

"For who?" Draggo asked.

"The guard." The Robotnik answered.

"Oh. That proves your theory I guess." As the signal from Terminator died, Draggo noted: "And another one bites the dust. These guys have a great track record." The Robotnik noted to himself that the weight-based wrecking fists were not suitable for close quarter attacks.

* * *

Knuckles fired one more round into the robot, before pulling his tracer out from the hole in its "neck".

"Everyone good?" He asked. The fighters with him all nodded. "Thanks for covering me. You," He paused, and frowned at having to say it. "Did a good job. How's ammo."

"We've all got three spare clips left."

"What? You trigger happy lunatics. We don't have infinite ammo you know."

* * *

"Ah." Tails said to himself, when he had finally found a good frequency. He turned the dial on the radio, and listened until the static cleared away.

"Hello." He said. "Can anyone hear me?" There was the sound of someone yawning.

"What's the matter, kid." The person on the other end asked. Tails rushed the explanation

"Robots are attacking."

"Riiight. Look, you really shouldn't be using…"

"I'm serious. I'm only using this 'cause I knew how to fix the radio after it was broken and everyone else is fighting or keeping their heads down."

"Pull the other one. Look, if it was really serious there would be a number you'd give me."

"Oh, that's why he wrote that. Nine-oh'-four-seven-four-five-five."

"Oh…" The person on the radio began cursing and rummaging through where ever he was. "Where are you?"

"Knothole, little town…"

"I'll send it up. Just stay there."

* * *

Kenny poked his head out the window and fired a burst at the robots below. They turned to fire, and he ducked down. The situation wasn't good. He and the Scrat kid were taking out robots steadily from the top floor of the house, but quite a few freedom fighters had become pinned inside buildings, without anyone able to get the robots off of them.

The over head gun fire stopped, and Kenny poked his head out a window to shoot at the same grouping again. There was a robot still aiming at him, though.

Scrat was reloading when he saw Kenny fall back from the window, followed by a red splash.

"I'm gonna' die." He moaned. He lifted above the window and saw the silver robot contrasting with the horde of purple. It was aiming where Kenny had been, but turned to look at him. Scrat ducked before it fired, and watched as the bullet removed a large chunk from the wall. He got on his stomach and crawled to the radio he had been given. He didn't get why, but he figured the ability to call for help should not be refused. He tried to talk to it. He gulped and tried again.

"I think I saw one of the special robots Knuckle talked about. It's…" Scrat dared to look out the window for a second. He got up and looked out the window again. "It's heading for the mounds. It's heading for the mounds!"

* * *

"The Mounds?" Draggo asked.

"Yes. Knothole's only true distinguishing feature. A series of over grown… trash heaps from before the Armageddon. The town used to attract quite a few archeologists, but in the past decade or so they stopped going through." The Robotnik responded.

"I wonder why that was?"

"Indeed. However, they would seem to be an ideal place to hide, away from the battle."

"I guess that will also help this one survive."

"Quite. This is exactly what Devastator was designed to do. It will not fail."

"Of course."

* * *

"I've got it covered." Amy said to the radio. She crawled over to the door of the house, but Yona tried to stop her.

"You can't go alone. It's stupid."

"I'll be a smaller target; they won't notice me if I don't shoot them. I need you to stay here and cover me." Yona shook her head.

"Amy, this is taking your-"

"This isn't about my crush! In case you hadn't noticed, Knuckles wasn't responding. Somebody has to do it, and I'm close enough to get there in time."

* * *

Knuckles looked at the broken radio.

"I take back everything I said about you people doing a good job." The fighters nodded. Another round of bullets came overhead.

"Well, what do we do now?" Someone asked. Knuckles promptly cuffed him on the nose.

* * *

Amy dashed between the purple figures, each one twice her size. Thankfully, they acted as she thought they would, not shooting her because she didn't shoot them.

Aleena heard a knocking over the gunfire. She went to her door and opened it carefully. A human kid fell in, holding his arm.

"Ahh." He moaned. Aleena helped him lean against a wall.

"Where is it?" she asked. He lifted his hand to show her. It was on the upper arm. She was almost sure the bullet hadn't hit an artery, but it still looked like he would bleed to death.

"They've got a doctor at the church. I'll take you there." The boy nodded and stood up to follow her.

* * *

Sonic stopped his incessant foot tapping. The sounds of metal feet falling were drawing closer. He looked at his siblings. Manic pointed to himself and then pointed forward. The green hedgehog walked to a mound in front of them and crawled to the top, barely poking his head over. He jumped down as a bullet went over his head.

"Bad news, dudes. Robot coming right for us, and he can shoot worth spittle."

"How far?" Sonia asked.

"Only a few mounds. We need to scram _now_."

"We circle around it, head towards the town, and hide in a building. We might be able to lose it, and hopefully some of the other kids can take it out while it's distracted with us." Sonia said.

"Sounds like a plan, now let's go." Manic said. They started running to the edge of the mounds, away from where they knew the robot was.

_Crack_

The bullet went where they had been seconds before. They didn't even bother trying to think, they just ran.

* * *

Amy panted as she tried to weave through the mounds. She had already seen the robot go into the mounds; she would be too late. When she saw her hammer, lying where she had left it under Knuckles' orders, she grabbed it without hesitation.

* * *

_Crack_

_Crack_

_Crack_

"Freeze." They stopped in front of a mound, and slowly turned to face the machine. It was the most anthroid one any of them had seen. It looked purely like a human wearing some archaic form of plate armor, a triangular grill covering where its mouth would be. It didn't have claws or other built-on weapons, just an unusually large, rectangular gun that it was pointing at them. There was a short groan, and then the Robotnik began speaking through it again.

"I am sure that if I was to meet you, you would have had absolutely wonderful personalities and characteristics, but that was not the way the world turned.

Instead, you were born with the intent of assuming supreme executive power through no skills or effort of your own, to help perpetuate a broken, corrupt society. You were cut off from that, but then you chose to try and take apart the more stable system for no reason I can find.

If you were to continue your course of actions uninterrupted, the world would eventually reach its breaking point and collapse back into barbarianism. What I am doing is not personal, simply what I must do.

And this time I don't think anyone will be coming to save you, at the last second, seeing as they are busy fighting already. I especially doubt it would be with a…"

"SLEDGEHAMMER?" The machine turned to see who had yelled, and Amy took the opportunity to bring down her hammer on the robots gun. The weapon bent from the blow, and the robot threw it away. A small gun popped up from the robot's right wrist, and it lifted the arm to point at Amy. She ducked as the arm stopped, barely dodging the bullet.

"no, No, NO!" The Robotnik yelled. Everything was going wrong for his machines. Devastator grabbed at the hedgehog attacking it, lifting her up by her neck.

"Gah!" Amy yell as she swung at the machine's arm. She hit the shoulder, crumbling the metal plate inward. The whole arm seemed to die, falling limp and letting her out. She scrambled behind the robot, as it began to turn. A gun came out of its left wrist, and it pointed it at all the hedgehogs in front of it.

"Die!" The Robotnik yelled, but a stream of glowing bullets slammed into the robot's left shoulder. At first they did nothing, but they slowly began to go through. The stream stopped as the arm fell down uselessly besides the robot.

Amy turned to look at their savior. It was Sonic, pressed against the mound, holding a tracer to his shoulder. He stood up and walked in front of the crippled robot and looked it in the face. There was a whirring as the robot looked down at him.

"Hey, 'Botnik. How you doing?" The machine didn't answer. "Does this mean I can talk? Good. Now, you've been going to a lot of effort to kill me and my buds, 'cause you think we're these big time crazy rebels." Sonic shook his head for effect.

"But we're not. I was just the singer in a rock band until _you_ came and tried to kill me. All that "heir to the throne" stuff? I get it, but I just don't care. Now, you on the other hand? That I care about.

You're a loon! You get the first inkling about us being the heirs and you totally lose your mind. You're going to all this work to kill us, when I know you could be doing something worth it. I wasn't going to be a rebel. But after _this_," Sonic pointed to the robot. "Sending some insane super-prototype just to kill me…"

Sonic shoved the machine to the ground and jumped onto it, putting his face over its, and yelled:

"I will fight you! I will take apart everything you've built! Even if it makes the world burn, you would have burned it in the end just to feed your ego! I will break this cage you've built to keep everyone in, and I won't be the person you tried to mold me as with your system!

I'll be the rebel!"

* * *

Tails head twitched away from the door as he heard someone come again.

"Kid? Are you there?" Tails picked up the microphone and answered.

"Yeah."

"He wants specifics."

"Who?"

"Who do you think?" Tails mouth dropped. The _king_ was asking him about something? How did he answer? What if he got it wrong?

"Just answer already." The person on the other end yelled.

"Sorry. Okay, First I met the Mobians, and they weren't here for any violent reason…"

* * *

Aleena helped the boy over to the old fox, who led him down to the basement of the church.

"Thanks, miss." The boy said before he fell unconscious. One of Aleena's friends from the town grabbed her and showed her a seat.

"That was so brave of you. Staying out there to help him…" She was cut off by the purple hedgehog.

"I need to leave."

"What?"

"I was recorded by some robot helping one of the rebel's here. I'm his enemy now. I need to leave, no, I need to be thrown out." She felt bad about lying like that, but it wasn't horribly untrue. It would have been enough to get her in trouble if she wasn't already marked for death.

"You'll come back after the battle's over, right?" Aleena could only shake her head.

"I've waited long enough. There are just things I need to do. I will come back when I can, but it will be a while."

"I see." That last note was filled with melancholy. Aleena was amused by the foxes reactions to the day. Invading robot army? Fine. Injure kids being pulled through a church? Fine. Friend willingly leaving? Whatever will I do?

Aleena went over to the church door and grabbed one of the tracers carelessly left on the ground. She picked it up and ran out, dodging to the side of the door as soon as she left. She watched the doors close, and then began heading back to her house to pick up her gear.

* * *

"…um, 'Botnik?" Draggo asked tentatively.

"Robotnik!"

"Robotnik?"

"What?"

"Why aren't you doing anything?"

"I'm thinking." Draggo just gulped. He knew very well how tenuous his position was, and he also knew what it would be like to have to work in one of the Robotnik's factories.

He couldn't understand, however, why the Robotnik was acting so scared, no, _terrified_ of a single hedgehog that had suddenly got an attitude.

"Truly, they are the three." The Robotnik whispered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh. Bye the way, what color was the Queen again?"

"Purple."

"Now, I've never seen her but, there is this purple hedgehog I'm seeing on this screen, and she's like, forty something, so not really someone who could have been with the rebels."

The Robotnik shrieked.

* * *

Sonic turned to his companions.

"How's it going back in town?" He asked. Amy took a few seconds to realize she was supposed to answer. She just wanted to hug him for being alright.

"Not good." She finally said. "Robot's are keeping everyone's heads down, so they can't shoot."

"They need a little diversion, I guess?" Sonic asked. Everyone with him wondered why he was grinning.

"Yeah…"

"We're going in."

"What?" Sonia and Manic yelled in unison.

"That's insane." Manic said. "We are going _into_ a fight we were specifically told not to? No way." Sonia was about to add on, but stopped herself as she thought about it.

"He's right." Manic looked at his lost support. "We only need to distract some of the robots long enough for another group to take them out. We need to act as a diversion."

"Didn't Knuckles say…" Manic tried to counter.

"They already know we're here. They'll come eventually." Sonic nodded.

"Well, let's rock and roll." He said. Sonia and Amy nodded, and Manic was left with all three of them looking at him.

"Guess I got no choice, now do I?" Shrugging, he followed the as they charged into the fray and then paused to grab one of the ammo bags.

* * *

Aleena crawled into the house, ducking below the aim of the robots. A human was already there, but no one else.

"Shouldn't you be in groups?" Aleena asked.

"Hans was hit. They're taking him back to the Shanks." Aleena nodded and looked around for another exit, but there was only the one she had come in by, meaning she was stuck. She looked over to the human, who was shivering at the current silence.

"What's your name?" she asked, hoping to strike up a conversation.

"Yona. Yona Navreen."

"Mine's Aleena Needleson. I'm a local."

"Where'd you get the gun?"

"It was a loose one at the church. I wanted to fight."

"Why?"

"Ivo killed my husband."

"Who?"

"Ivo Regoban. He calls himself 'The Robotnik' now, right?"

"Oh." Yona said quietly.

"What about you?"

"I just kinda' ended up here. I mean, I dragged my friend, Amy, whose a hedgehog by the way, to a bar, and we saw this band and then she got a HUGE crush on the guitarist, who was another hedgehog of course, and she pulled me to this concert they were doing, but then a bunch of cop-bots showed up out of nowhere and said they had to die, and made everybody else leave, but then Amy gives this big speech about how wrong it is and charges in with a sledgehammer-"

"Um, can you hurry up a bit?"

"Okay so there was this big fight, and after it was done this echidna said the Robotnik would kill everybody and led us up here, and there was also something about the princes and princess but he didn't say all that much. What?" Yona looked at Aleena's blank face.

"He wasn't after me." Aleena whispered.

"What?" Aleena grabbed Yona by the shoulder.

"He said the heirs were here? Who did he say they were?"

"The band."

"The blue, green, and pink ones? Did he say that?"

"Yeah. It's 'cause they have these weird necklaces…"

"Oh, God." Aleena said, leaning back. Her kids were alive but Ivo's robots were chasing them. She could only hope they were alright.

* * *

"We won't last much longer." A human with a purple headband yelled.

"Shaddap." Liza yelled. "You remember how we fought back home? When someone tried to take our turf, we kicked them out. The Sharks? Out. The Jets? Out. Well think of this as our turf, and those robots are on it."

"If we give them a target they'll tear us to bits."

"We wait for them to turn. When they do we'll hit 'em so hard they won't know who did. You got me?"

"Yes." The human squeaked.

"Good." From outside, they heard the rate of gunfire suddenly pick up and someone yelling.

"Hahaha. That's the best you got? That's right turn to face me." Liza grinned as she stood up in the window and began firing indiscriminately at the robot's backs, along with the rest of her gang that were still with her.

* * *

Sonia nodded as some of the robots fell without having been shot by her or the people with her.

"Hey, sis, can you come with me?" She turned to look at Manic. Funny, how comfortable he was with calling her "Sis" after only a few months of knowing each other. She really could only consider him a friend at most.

"Why?" she asked.

"Some people are going to have used up all their ammo. I need back up for handing this out."

"What about Sonic?"

"Ah, let him be a hero for a little bit. 'Sides, I'd like someone with a cooler head. Come on." They began to work their way into the town.

"What about the people right there?"

"Do ya' remember that Liza girl I mentioned once?"

"Oh. Old girlfriend."

"Heck no. Gang boss, a real nasty, vindictive one. I've robbed her more times than I can count."

"Why?"

"Food, okay? I need to eat, they need to eat, and we can't both get it."

"That's all you did before you met us?"

"Pretty much." Sonia stared at her brother for a few seconds, trying to understand how he could live from one stolen meal to the next, and having to survive violent criminals. "What?" Manic asked, looking back at her.

"Nothing." She said, shaking her head. They continued into Knothole, ready to aid the battle.

* * *

Sonic and Amy made their way into the house, checking its occupants. It was almost the worst people he could meet.

"Oh look. It's mister 'gang filth'. We all remember him don't we?" The rest of the gangsters with Liza nodded very slowly.

"Hey. Try to kill me later." Sonic replied. "We've still got a few robots to handle. Can you take care of things on this end?"

"More than you can." All of the gangsters laughed.

"What?" Amy asked.

"Ah, never mind." Liza said. "It wasn't that funny anyways. Alright boys, you heard the king, we're moving out."

"I'm not the-"

"Well there's only two boy heirs, right? Someone has to be king, right? You're the only ones who could be." Liza waved as she and the rest of her gang moved off to the next house. Sonic nodded to Amy, and they went back across the street.

* * *

Knuckles and his fighters fired another volley into the robots outside. Someone appeared to have broken the machines' concentration on their point, giving him the chance to take out a whole squadron of cop-bots. He heard a coughing and turned to see Manic and Sonia stumble into the house.

"Happy birthday: Ammunition for everybody!" Manic threw down the bag and ducked, with Sonia following him, Knuckle ducked below the window as another round of bullets came overhead.

"What are you doing?" Knuckles barked. "I told you-"

"One of the robots found us anyways." Sonia said.

"Damn. Where is it?"

"Scrapped in the mounds." Manic said.

"You still shouldn't have-"

"Somebody needed to." Sonia said. "And we were the only ones able to. Us three and Amy.

"Who?"

"The one with the crush on Sonic."

"Oh. Why was she there?"

"She knew the robot was coming for us. She saved our live actually."

"I see. Where's Sonic?"

"Causing a distraction."

"Idiot. Manic, Sonia, stay in here while we push in. I think we're finally managing to push back the machines, but I still need you alive. Got it?"

"Yes, mom." Manic said.

"Good. Come on kids, we're moving out." Manic and Sonia watched Knuckles and his fighters leave, and then turned to each other and nodded. Grabbing their guns, they poked their heads out of the window and began firing.

* * *

Sonic yelled as he fired into the metal horde, watching them fall from the gun-fire of the freedom fighters that held the city. They fired bullet after bullet and emptied clip after clip, but finally, by the end of the day, the last of the cop-bots in the city had been destroyed.

* * *

**Author Note: That part with Scrat and the radio? most important part I planned for an "OC". by the way, they're mostly references to other series, and just there to fill up minor roles. I'll be trying to correct my more obnoxious OC usage as I go on. R&R Please!**


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"What happened while I was asleep?" The Robotnik asked. The implication of the queen's survival had caused him to faint from shock, and Draggo had decided he could use sleep for a short while. Now Draggo was dwelling upon the phrase, "Don't shoot the messenger".

"They survived." He said.

"How? They were…"

"Tactical advantage. Cover, mobility, weaponry. Really, we just didn't have the right stuff to take them." The Robotnik nodded his head. It was sensible. Entirely ordinary. Unlike people randomly being alive.

"They have a foot hold now. I'll have to talk to the king of…"

"Yeah, about that… He wants to talk to you right now."

"It can't be about this. The radio was broken." He turned on one of his screens, letting the image of a fox in an archaic suit appear.

"Greetings, Robotnik." He said.

"Greetings, overseer." The Robotnik replied.

"Um, that's king." The fox said. The Robotnik grunted. He shouldn't have let the heir be the next overseer, but the riots at the time had begun to reach a difficult point.

"No. In the treaty the monarchy was abolished."

"Oh right. Sorry, I'm just so forgetful. Like that part where you aren't allowed to send robots into my country."

"Of course not." The Robotnik said.

"Oh. I thought you forgot too."

"What?"

"Well, I got this radio call about how robots were attacking one of my towns, and they seemed pretty sure they were yours. Now, since it was one of my towns, I should have been organizing the forces to stop these rebels."

"I had already been pursuing them from Mobius, there was no time to contact."

"Pull the other one. Look, you did what just about everybody in the North thought you were going to do, meaning you broke the treaty, meaning we now care even less about what you say."

"That's ridiculous." The Robotnik said. He wasn't quite sure where the conversation was going anymore.

"SO, we would just like to say that we no longer feel like even being mentioned in the same breath as you."

"What?" The Robotnik watched the king of the North pull out a rather large gun from behind him, very much like the one from the Robotnik's war-robots. The guns with armor penetrating capabilities, such as would be needed to damage his robots.

"We're rebelling, you fat idiot." And then the screen turned off. The room was quiet for a few seconds before the Robotnik said:

"Draggo?"

"Yeah boss?"

"I will be a bit busy in the upcoming months. Since you are such an intelligent person, I want you to personally head the efforts to kill the three heirs, and find out whether the Queen is alive."

"I see."

"Yes. I will be overseeing your progress of course, SO I expect to receive at least some good news in my reports. Am I right?"

"Of course. You can count on me. I'll get ready right now."

"Good."

* * *

"Miss Aleena." Tails called out to her, seeing her with a pack on her back and walking to the south end of town. She turned and looked at him. "Where are you going?" She walked over to look him in the face.

"Tails, I need to do some things in Mobius."

"Why?"

"Because I'm the… Because Brushen…" Aleena took a breath. "My husband was a very important man in Mobius, and the Robotnik wanted his children dead."

"So?"

"And if the Robotnik sees me, he'll think my children are here."

"But your kids are down in Mobius?" Aleena shook her head.

"They're right in this town." Tails remembered what she had told him about her kids: Blue, pink, and green. He remembered how much the band members looked like each other.

"You're leaving them again?" Tails yelled.

"I have to. I can keep Ivo focused on me, protect them. If we're in one place he'll send everything he can to kill us, and they'll die for sure."

She remembered what had made her realize this, the song from the night. "I long for my children, but I have to wait." With that, she patted Tails on his shoulder and then continued walking south.

Tails turned and ran to the Mounds.

* * *

Amy stared at Sonic, drumming her fingers behind her back. The funerals were over for now, and they had no one to personally grieve for. She had best get it over with now.

"Do you want to go out with me?" Sonic rolled his eyes.

"We're in a war. There really isn't time for this." She was about to reply when the fox-kid, Tails, came running in.

"Sonic!" he yelled. "Your mom's here. She's here, and she's trying to leave."

"What?"

"Hurry up. She'll be gone if you aren't fast enough."

"Where?"

"The south of town, on the main road, you should catch her before she leaves." Sonic didn't take time to think about it, he just ran. He ran as fast as he could, past the houses and stores of Knothole. He ran to the edge of town and looked out into the distance.

"Stop!" He yelled. There was no reply. There was no one there. Sonic heard the patter of four feet, and turned to look at his siblings.

"I guess she was faster than Tails thought." Sonia said.

"Come on. She probably had a reason." Manic said, turning to go back. Sonic nodded, but took one glance back before following.

"We'll find her someday." He said.

"Yeah." Sonia said.

"Once this is all over, I guess." Manic said.

"Someday."

* * *

Aleena looked around the corner to make sure children were well away, and then began walking south. She would have to be quick now, now that they already thought her gone.

* * *

The wolf referred to as "Draggo" fiddled with the handheld, adjusting its knobs. He had gotten these _because_ they could work in cities. He grinned as the static cleared. A voice on the other end asked:

"Who is this?"

"It's me, Dingo. We've got a job."

* * *

**Author Note: Because it wouldn't be SU without these two clowns. Needless to say, they will be getting the same "serious" treatment as everyone else, preferably without hurting their personalities to much. I might be taking a short break just to plan the next few Acts, so you are warned.**


	15. Act 3 Chaos Emeralds: Chapter 14

**Author note:All Hail The Cinderninja! First reviewer, and did a spiffy job too. you can also review. please.  
**

**Hard time getting computer alone. posted this to confirm that I haven't ditched you.**

* * *

Chapter 14

Somewhere a few miles away from Knothole, there sat a farmhouse. The farm itself was not large, and probably could only reliably feed two people on a daily basis, though it used to be larger.

Knuckle walked up towards it, but on some impulse walked around the house and to the back door. He pushed it open and walked in, only to find two echidnas in the kitchen: one man and one woman, both showing the signs of growing older. They turned and stared, making Knuckles rub his forehead.

"Mom, dad, I'm home. And still alive." He said. The woman ran and hugged him, making Knuckles remember how long it had been since he left. When she finished, he turned to his father and they nodded at each other.

"I just wanted you to know now in case I…"

"Don't." His mom warned him. Knuckles grimaced in fear reflexively. They already might have thought he was dead.

"I've got a lot to do right now, but I'll try to come back when it's over."

* * *

Sonic looked up from a game of cards with Manic as Knuckles came back. The echidna clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.

"We're marching again. This time is to a port. It will take around six days, and we'll be meeting a regiment of the Northern army half way along, who will escort us the rest of the way. Once we're there…" Knuckles breathed deep to ready himself for the reaction.

"Anybody who doesn't wish to fight may go. I do not want you to be pressured into staying longer than you have to. Once we're farther north the army will be able to block assaults from Mobius, and you will not be under immediate threat.

I personally do not want to have to cover extra kids who won't be able to fight if the time comes. You have half an hour to prepare to march. Get moving." Everyone managed to keep control of themselves rather nicely as they walked to prepare whatever they had. Knuckle turned to look at Tails as he came running up.

"No." Was his prescient response.

"What?" Tails cried.

"You're not coming with us. You're too young for marching."

"But-"

"I want your back up in the plane. How far can it go?"

"I haven't had time to figure out how far with the main source, but I could probably go anywhere with the backup." Knuckles blinked a few times at the statement.

"Anywhere?"

"It'd still take time and I'd need good weather, but aye."

"Are you sure?"

"Aye. The backup never runs out." Knuckles rolled his eyes.

"Look, there's no such thing as infinite energy. Even I know that."

"Well, then it just doesn't run out very quickly."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Use that then. I want you to follow us as best you can, in case we're attacked by more of the flying robots. We'll be going to Edmund's-Burrow."

"Okay." Tails walked back to his shack. Knuckles nodded and walked over to the three.

"Now, while we're there you three and I will be meeting with-'

"The king." Sonia said from where she sat, watching the game. Knuckles eyes widened to look at her.

"You told Tails we were going to Edmund's-Burrow. That's the capital of the North, named for their first king's residence. Ergo if we were to meet someone it would be the king."

"How'd you know that?" Manic asked.

"I was taught it."

"Impressive." Knuckles said. "And she's right. You'll be meeting with the king to discuss what we'll be doing next, and I want you three to know what you're going to say. I don't want anything stupid." He finished, glaring at Sonic and Manic intently.

"What about her?" Sonic asked, pointing to his sister.

"She's nobility, right? She should have a good handle on this." With that Knuckles walked off to be somewhere other than in the vicinity of teenagers.

"That idiot." Sonia said. Both her brothers looked at her oddly. "The nobility is always at odds with the royalty."

"Riiight." Manic said.

"No, look at it like this." Sonic said. "They can't both be rich snobs running everything."

"Ohhh. Sorry, Sonia. I thought you were ignoring reality for a few seconds." Manic said.

"Your apologies are heartwarming."

* * *

"Are you sure this is the best possible method?" The Robotnik asked over the radio-video set.

"Look. Last time you tried to get them, you sent machines. Now, not that they are worthless, but there are just some areas in which they will not excel. Improvisation, for example. Also, the kids won't be as willing to kill an actual person." Draggo said.

"Yes, but your choice of person… fails to inspire confidence." The wolf looked behind him at his companion, an extraordinarily bulky, orange-furred anthro of some kind, who was currently staring at a nearby pile of brick. "Draggo" turned back to the hand-set.

"Trust me. I checked this guy's record, and he almost always got his target. And the ones he didn't get usually were warlord's with equipment even you might envy. He can do this."

"If you say so. It is your responsibility."

"I will not fail you."

"One more thing."

"What?"

"I heard him call you… Sleet?"

"Oh. Well, I don't exactly want him to know who he's working for. He didn't take the whole 'detainment and forced work' thing very well, you see."

"Ah. Good luck then." The Robotnik winked off the screen, and Sleet likewise turned off the hand-set. The orange anthro moved his vision from the pile of bricks.

"Hey Sleet?"

"Yeah?"

"Why does he call you Draggo?"

"Oh, well, you see Dingo, I don't exactly want him to know who's working for him. He didn't take the whole 'bounty hunter' thing very well when I first went to him, you see, so I don't want him checking up on us."

"Ohhh."

"Well, are you ready?" Dingo began patting himself down rapidly, looking for his five knives and his back-up revolver.

"I don't have my shotgun."

"It's on your back."

"Oh." Sleet gave himself a pat down: Bullet proof vest under the suit, both semi-automatic pistols, Knife in the right shoe, knife in the tie.

"Well now, let's get going."

"Okay… where?"

"Down south. I've got a good feeling about where they'll go next."

* * *

The freedom fighters marched for the rest of the day, until the sun began to set in the west. Knuckles called them to a halt, and turned to face them.

"If anyone wants to say something to me, now is the time, while we're alone." He looked out at the kids in front of him, waiting for the inevitable criticism. He was surprised when it didn't come. He wasn't the only one of them with a weapon now, he wasn't a threat.

"No one wants to say anything?" He asked. "Very well then. We're camping here for the night. Joe, you have first front watch, Dalin, you have the first rear watch."

"What was that all about?" Sonic asked.

"He was just trying to help people get out what they wanted to say, so he'd know what we thought." Sonia said.

"Actually, he just looked like he was about to knock out the first person who tried to bad mouth him."

"He wouldn't do that. He's just feeling bad about the people who… died under his command. You just need to understand things from his view." The three were silent for a few seconds, until Manic raised an eyebrow.

"Wow, sis, didn't know you were into echidnas." He said.

"What?"

"Or older men, for that matter." Sonic added. "But that's probably normal for nobles." Sonia crossed her arms in disgust as she caught on.

"Ugh. How can you even think about that?" she said.

"Ah, don't take it personally." Manic said, patting her on the shoulder. "I'm making fun of Sonic next."

"About what?" Sonic asked.

"About a certain quickly approaching hammer-psycho lady." Manic replied.

"Oh no." Sonic grimaced.

* * *

Knuckles sat apart from the kids, wrapped in his camo cloak, eyes closed, but not sleeping. He opened them as he heard the footfalls of a grown human male come in his direction. The Oracle sat down in front of him, and looked him in the face.

"You feel guilty." He said. The echidna simply grunted the question away. "So now you don't want to talk about it, after inviting all of your army to speak up."

"I was trying to find any problems I'd have. Obviously it didn't work."

"Obviously. You're an intimidating, yet idolized, figure, an unstoppable, spiteful god who will punish those who grumble against their savior."

"Nine have died so far."

"But you saved the whole." Knuckles stared at the Oracle for a few seconds, before snorting and dismissing it.

"Where'd you get this?"

"I took psychology in college. Easy grades, you see." Knuckles personally thought that college was a waste of life, and couldn't grudge the Robotnik for removing it.

"I assume this was before you took up prophesying?"

"Shortly before. After the graduation I took a trek up North, and ended up walking in on the old Oracle, Delphius. I took him to be a coot at first, until he repeated a conversation from one of my classes, word for word.

The topic had been about how people… set false goals for themselves, try to distract from what they want to do but think or know they can't. I realized that he was using the conversation to describe me, since I honestly didn't want to spend my life listening to other people's issues. After that I started training as the next Oracle."

Knuckles stared at him with an utter lack of belief.

"You're mad." He said

"I am not trying to adapt the willpower that drove a lone man to fight for fifteen years into the willpower to lead an army." With that, the Oracle stood and walked off before Knuckles could think up a reply. Closing his eyes, the echidna went back to his musings.


	16. Chapter 15

**Author Note: Just some small editing, real update today if I have time.  


* * *

**

Chapter 15

It was the third day of marching, and the sun was already beginning to sink in the distance.

"Someone approaching." Knuckles said from the front of the column. The word was quickly passed down, and the freedom fighters stopped their march. The lone figure finally reached them and turned out to be a fox, probably around twenty years old. He stopped in front of Knuckles, took a single breath, and started talking.

"Private Duncan Bruce, sir, reporting from Second Regiment. Are you the Mobians we were sent to escort?" Knuckles stopped him with his hand as a whine was heard in the distance. It pitched into a roar as Tails' plane flew over them and to the North. Knuckles pulled out the radio from his pocket and held it to his face.

"Is there an army?" He asked. Tails voice came from the other end.

"Aye. Looking smart too."

"Okay. Loop around us and cover our rear." Knuckles put the radio away and turned his attention back to the soldier, who was still in shock.

"Yes, we're the Mobians."

"You've got a flying machine?" Duncan asked in wonder. Knuckles grunted at him and the fox coughed and stood to attention.

"Right. You're to follow me back to the main group. We're less than a kilo away." Knuckles nodded and yelled to get the freedom fighters walking again. They reached the camp quickly, and Duncan went to fetch the commander. The commander came out, an older fox and took his time to look over Knuckles and the rest of the freedom fighters.

"You're the Mobians?" He finally said.

"Yes." Knuckles said.

"You look the part."

"Why, thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment." Knuckles didn't reply.

"You're sloppy. You're a mob armed with peashooters and wearing those silly capes the Mobians used. You look like a cult." Knuckles breathed deeply for a few seconds before saying.

"These kids have won a battle against the Robotnik's forces." The old fox stared at him.

"Those were the rather cheaply produced Enforcers-"

"The same design that took out the Mobian Royal Guard fifteen years ago, and have a track record of facing down several well armed gangs without taking substantial damage. They were also the design used when the Robotnik cowed the North into licking his boot, something I still can't believe you did." The fox commander was fit to be tied.

"The North did not-"

"Yes, you did, mostly because your arsenal was not fit to handle the robot's armor. Our 'peashooters', on the other hand, were specifically made to penetrate armor. Also, these 'capes' help us stay hidden from the robot's light sensors, and that's important because directly assaulting them is, well… sloppy." The fox stood for a few seconds before straightening himself and forcing out:

"Well, that was certainly an… interesting debate on different styles of warfare, but I do believe that we have yet to formally introduce ourselves. Captain Sabertache at your service." The fox extended his hand.

"Knuckles." The echidna replied, taking the hand and shaking it briskly. The fox raised and eyebrow. "My actual name isn't safe to use." Knuckles replied.

"Ah." Was the captain's hesitant answer. "Well, we have provisions to tide your forces over until we reach Edmund's-Burrow." Turning to the army under his command, the captain started bellowing out orders and regaining his composure.

As the freedom fighters began taking food from the soldiers of the Northern army, Knuckles and Sabertache were heatedly discussing how the two armies would march in unison. Sonic, Sonia, and Manic stood with the rest of the freedom fighters as food was sorted to them, trying to avoid notice.

The soldiers seemed to generally look down on them, not just because they were naturally taller. It reminded them of the fact that they were all around fifteen, but some of the Northern soldiers looked only a few years older.

"Couldn't they look somewhere else?" Manic asked.

"At what?" Sonia replied. "We're the only thing out here."

"They could keep to themselves."

"They probably spent at least three days doing so. Besides you keep looking at them."

"Well… dang it." Sonic snorted and went back to watching the Northern soldiers. He noticed the odd, bulky rifles on their backs, and was forced to speak up.

"What kind of gun are those?"

"A-a new one." Some hedgehog said. Sonic glanced at him. He bit his lip nervously before trying to explain. "My- my dad knew a lot about… guns, and made me learn a bunch too. Those don't look like any design he… showed me."

"Right." Sonic said, and laid back to rest himself.

* * *

The next day Tails woke up in his shack, ate a short breakfast, and then went to his plane to start it up. He had originally thought he could land alongside the rest of the rebels, but it had turned out that the wilderness didn't have any ground flat enough to land the plane on.

Today however, he'd have to start going to Edmund's-Burrow to land, just to make the trips shorter. He had been told there would be a place to land, but that also meant he wouldn't have his supplies, or anything he had ever known, with him.

Thus he dutifully stuffed the plane as full as he could with anything he'd thought he'd need, including "**Aeronautics of the 1910's**", the Pre-Armageddon book that he had used when building his plane. He had been forced to improvise quite a bit for the design, but he thought the results were satisfactory.

On the up-side of his move, the back-up power source was proving itself quite nicely, having easily provided the energy for all the flying he had been doing. He got in and set up, then lifted off.

* * *

When the freedom fighter's started the march the next day, they found themselves in front of the Northern soldiers, so that "No one was left behind". They were also made to walk in neat lines so as to "Not get on the captain's bad side, which is also mine".

As they came to a stop on the fourth day, Sonic couldn't restrain himself from talking.

"I thought these guys were professionals? How come we've only gone about as far as we usually did."

"It takes quite a bit of organization to move an army any distance. Frankly, Knuckles' haphazard fashion risked losing people without anyone knowing." Sonia said. Sonic became very quite. "Frankly, it's a surprise that didn't happen." Sonic nodded and leaned back on the ground.

After the battle, he had been psyched to keep fighting the Robotnik, but instead he was on yet another long march. Thankfully it would only be a few more days until they got to Edmund's-Burrow… where he'd have to act like royalty. That would be painful.

"Hey, Sis." He said

"Yeah?" Sonia replied.

"What do you think we're going to talk to the king about?"

"Probably how the war will be run."

"Daah." Manic groaned.

"What?" Sonia asked.

"I do not like thinking about this as a war."

"Well, it is one." Sonic said. "'Botnik's probably going to try and take the North back, and he'd still want us three dead."

* * *

"Hey Sleet." Dingo said.

"Yes."

"If the kids went up north, then why are we going down south?" Sleet turned his view away from the Channel's waters to look at his partner and remind him why he was in charge.

"You see, the Robotnik's now in a war with the North, meaning we'd probably be detained if we went that way. And the kids are faced with the same problem."

"What do you mean?"

"They will try to overthrow the Robotnik by going straight to him, but they're army won't be able to absorb the losses of fighting through the Robotnik's forces. Therefore they're next move will be to loop around and take the Robotnik's city from the rear of the country, moving by sea. However, I already told him about that, so he'll have all the ports on Mobius fortified, forcing them either back to the North, but more likely to Thran."

"And we're gonna' catch them there?"

"Probably. Unless, of course, they have a good chance of winning."

"Do you think they do?"

"No. They're what, five hundred kids? That's nowhere near enough to win a war."

* * *

By the end of the sixth day, Sonic could see the city of Edmund's-Burrow before him. It was nowhere near the size of Mobius City, but still fairly impressive in its own right. They camped for the night, and woke up the next morning. Knuckles met the freedom fighters as a group, ready to oversee the separation.

"As I said, anyone who wants to leave now may do so. I am sure most of you know enough to get a job, and there will be many with the war that's bound to be starting, but I'll warn you now, you'll be on your own. No one will guide, no one will give you food. Also, you'll have to turn in your gun, your ammo, and your cloak to me."

There was a general nodding of heads. And then a pause. No one moved. Knuckles looked over them, trying to read their expressions. His head flinched back and forth faster and faster, before he finally yelled:

"Will someone leave already?" everyone cringed. Knuckles straightened himself as he saw captain Sabertache walking over.

"What seems to be the problem?"

"I am trying to make sure the people with me are actual soldiers, and not kids who've gotten too caught up in things."

"I think that's best done after you've met with King Robert. This is, after all, his country." Knuckles nodded.

"My men can watch the refugees for now. You and your 'guards' are to come with me to the king." Knuckles nodded slowly again.

"Come on." He told the three, and they followed the captain and his escort.

* * *

Two of the soldiers on guard looked at each other nervously as they saw someone running towards them. They sighed as they realized it was the mutant kid they were warned about. The soldiers stepped aside and let Tails walk past.

"Hey, is Sonic here?" He asked randomly.

"No; he just left." A pink hedgehog responded. She tapped the ground next to her and a human. "you can wait with us if you want.'

"Okay." Tails went over and sat down, slightly embarrassed but able to keep thinking that they were both a different species, and much older than him.

"So, where've you been staying?" The human asked.

"Um, at an army base just out of the city."

"Oh. Are they treating you good?"

"Yeah. They gave me a really comfortable bedroll to use and a tent. And the food is excellent." The nearby soldiers quickly covered their mouths and wheezed, leaning over to balance themselves.

"Is the plane okay?"

"Yeah. They had a road all set up for me to land on, and a place for the plane to stay. I was a bit worried about someone breaking in, though, so I decided to keep the power source on me." The hedgehog cocked her eyebrows. She was pretty sure a battery for such a machine would be bigger.

"Really." she said. "Where is it?"

"Oh." Tails replied, ruffling his hand in his pocket. "Right here." He pulled it out and showed them a large, starburst cut emerald.

* * *

As they walked up the path to the castle, Sonia couldn't help but talk.

"This formation is apparently the hardened magma from a volcano. The castle itself was built on the ruins of another stone structure that persisted at least up and to the Armageddon, but we don't know whether a nuclear weapon damaged the building, or if one was used on this general area at all."

Sonic at least pretended to listen, while Manic was busy staring wide-eyed at the various gold objects that decorated the king's castle. Knuckles coughed as a set of large door opened in front of them and they were ushered in to what appeared to be a throne room. A fox probably in his twenties was seated on a large chair, on top of what appeared to be a rock. In front of him were three more chairs, all turned to face him.

"You are dismissed, captain." Sabertache nodded and left the room with his soldiers. As the door closed behind him the fox nodded, stood up and bowed to each of the three, while Knuckles stood behind them and to the side. "Prince Sonic, Prince Manic, and Princess Sonia Needleson." _Needleson? _Sonic thought. Sonia bowed back to him and replied.

"King Robert Wallace." Manic sighed internally. He hadn't known the guy's name. Robert sat down and the three followed suit into the other chairs. Knuckles stayed standing.

"Well, I believe that this is your first time being addressed properly. Am I right?"

"Yeah." Sonic said.

"So, why'd you call us Needleson?" Manic asked, making sure he was not staring at the gold candle holders.

"That's your family name, whether you remember it or not." Robert replied

"Ah."

"Well, enough small talk: We need to get down to business. What your army will be doing next." There was a sudden and extremely fake cough from Knuckles. "If your commander could join the discussion."

"Of course." Sonic said, not knowing what had been restraining Knuckles in the first place. Knuckles nodded and stepped forward to stand next to Sonic's chair.

"First." He said. "We need to figure out who actually is in… their army. Everyone involved with the fight at the theatre was forced to go into your country for refuge. Not all of them are necessarily able or willing to fight. They had to at Knothole, but as of now they are safe."

"Mobius had a volunteer army?" Robert asked. Knuckle nodded his head.

"I see. We actually had quite a few refugees from when the Robotnik first took over, so we do have a bit of a program in place. Most of them are kids, right?"

"Yes." Knuckles said.

"Right. We'll get people to start sorting them out. For now, we need to figure out what you're doing next." Sonic raised an eyebrow as Robert pointed to him.

"I was planning to keep fighting." He said.

"Obviously. But you really won't be much good on the front line."

"What?" Sonic said rather loudly.

"Sonic." Sonia warned. "He means that we'd be better suited fighting somewhere else."

"That and it wouldn't look to good to have a bunch of kids dying right next to his army." Manic said. Robert nodded slowly.

"The problem is, I… can't think of the best place for a small army like yours to go."

"If I may?" Knuckles asked the three, leaving a thin trail of sarcasm in the air.

"Yes." Sonia said, neatly cutting off either of her brothers.

"Thank you. As we speak the Robotnik will be reassigning factories in Mobius to build his war robots, which will be significantly harder to fight than the Enforcers he currently has on hand. I suppose you have some way of dealing with them because of your openness in… reasserting sovereignty."

"Our best scientists perfected the hand-held form of those war machines' guns a few years ago, and they're heavy enough to penetrate the armor. We simply needed a good reason to declare war." Robert replied.

"I see. Still, the longer the war goes the more war machines the Robotnik will produce. Therefore, we should end this quickly before it can escalate too far. We need to stop the Robotnik himself."

"It won't be easy going back the way you came; He'll have it all fortified so my armies can't get to him quickly."

"Then we should take Mobius from the South, where he won't have it fortified. We'll need to take a few ships from here to do so though."

"Well, then. It sounds like a plan. Now, this is all theoretical, but what do you three plan to do once you've got you throne back." All three heirs bit their lips. None of them had thought about actually having to run a country. Manic finally shrugged, and then Knuckles gave him a death glare, stopping whatever he was going to say.

"We'll certainly be reestablishing most of the things the Robotnik removed, but we haven't thought about any particular policy in detail." Sonia finally said.

"Well." Robert said as he stood. "That's all for now." The three stood up and both sides bowed to each other. "It was a pleasure meeting with you."


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

_Four hundred left. _Knuckles thought. Frankly, it was much more than he had hoped for, but it also meant he'd have more kids to watch over. Then again, quite a few of the ones left belonged to street gangs, meaning they'd be able to handle themselves. Probably. The Oracle was nowhere to be found, which was probably safer in the long run. Knuckles could only guess that the Oracle had only been interested in getting away from the Robotnik's influence, and had tagged along with Knuckles' army for safety. He glanced over to the other side of the boat, where "prince" Sonic was being pestered by the psycho girl. Snorting he turned to look back at the water.

The king and queen had been young when he joined the Guard, but not this young. That, and they actually took their job seriously, especially the queen. She had only married in, but somehow she seemed far more up to the job than her husband. Probably why she had managed to survive. Knuckles shook his head a few times. No, that was not the way to think. But she had managed to keep her kids alive. The fact that she had already had her children had been a bit of a surprise to him, but he guessed it must have been some weird Mobian tradition.

Knuckles glanced over to the other boats as kids loaded on. He would have preferred the Northern army backing them up, but they were guarding their country. On the other hand, the Mobian freedom fighters had been resupplied with food and all the tracer ammo the North hadn't used, having decided that it was not able to penetrate the more reinforced armor of the Robotnik's war machines, instead opting to create heavier guns. This meant the freedom fighters would actually be able to make a decent effort to get to Mobius City if it wasn't t heavily guarded.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Hey." Amy said.

"Hi." Sonic replayed glumly, leaning on the edge of the boat. Just what he needed: stuck on a floating rock with a girl who refused to leave him alone.

"Yeah. I talked to Tails while you were meeting with the king, and I don't know if he told you this already, but he uses a giant emerald to power his plane. Isn't that so weird?" There was the audible sound of metal against flesh as Knuckles hit his forehead some ways off. Sonic tilted his head up and suddenly felt a bit less sick than before. His siblings walked over, Manic rubbing the green gem hung on his neck.

"Really?" Manic asked slowly.

"Yeah." Amy said, turning to face him. "I couldn't understand everything he said, but apparently he guessed that it could take electricity from the air." Manic and Sonia simply gave her quizzical glances.

"How big was it?" Sonic asked, turning around.

"About as big as his fist. Why?"

"Well it could be a Chaos Emerald." Everyone looked at him oddly. Sonic frowned and rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Chuck told me a lot of the Bard's stories as a kid, since I'm named after him and all. The Chaos Emeralds were something that kept reappearing in them. I think in one story they let a castle float."

"Right." Manic said, carefully tucking his gem back under his vest. "Anything else these 'Chaos Emeralds' did."

"Tons of stuff. Can't remember all of them, but they could definitely make stuff float."

"So then the gas-" Sonia began.

"Chaos" Sonic corrected her.

"-Chaos Emerald is what makes Tails plane stay in the air, and he must have another battery to steer the thing. The reason there aren't many more flying machines is that there isn't any dependable power source to keep them in the air."

"The Robotnik has flying machines, though." Amy said, feeling the need to be involved in the conversation again.

"I guess they were smaller." Sonia replied. "I don't know that much about mechanics." From there the conversation devolved into a discussion over different methods of education, while Manic and Sonic quietly slipped off to another part of the boat.

OOOOOOOOOO

Knuckles took the time to sleep while the boats sped out to the east of the Greater Isle, eventually turning south to loop back to Mobius. Sadly, he was woken up at various times by Sonic getting sick over the side of the boat, Sonic running on a boat when his stalker tried to help him out, and Sonic getting chastised by his sister for being rude. He finally managed to get back to sleep, but woke up still tired when they were coming close to Mobius' southeastern shore. He walked to the head of the ship to get a better view and frowned. Taking out the scope for his tracer, he scanned the port.

"Cop-bots." He said simply and loudly. The general chatter of the boat died off. Walking to the back, Knuckles explained to the captain of the boat. "He's got cop-bots waiting for us at the port, too many for us to handle. Alert the other boats and tell them to fall back." The captain looked at him quizzically but took out his own pair of binoculars and found that Knuckles was telling the truth.

"What do we do next then?" the captain asked, being rather partial to living.

"Can you make it through the Channel?"

"Yes."

"He'll have all the ports guarded then." Knuckles frowned as he said it. "We have to go back." His part in the war was over already. He noticed the captain biting his lips nervously. "What?"

"Well, the plan was to recharge the boats once we took the port so…" Knuckles stared at him in disbelief.

"How far back can we reach?"

"Halfway on Mobius' eastern shore if we're lucky." The captain stared back at Knuckles gaping mouth. "It was the only battery I could get, okay?" he said waving his arms.

"We'll have to land in Thran, then." Knuckles turned to the voices source, Sonia. "There's nowhere else to go, so we'll have to take Thran instead. It probably isn't as fortified as Mobius is." Knuckles sighed. He'd rather not be shown up by someone half his age.

"We're going to Thran, then." He told the captain who quickly alerted the other ships to the new plan. Knuckles walked back onto the deck, where there was a general murmur about what was happening. "We've been forced to land in Thran." He said. "We'll have to be subtle and quick, and take the port quickly before the Robotnik can notice. Remember how we fought back at Knothole. Stay in buildings, shoot only when you have a clear shot, and don't risk the lives of any civilians. We want them on our side. Everybody clear?" A general cheer confirmed this, and everyone set to work getting their guns ready. Sonic looked up as he saw Knuckles and his sister walking back.

"Lemme guess: You don't want us to fight."

"It isn't necessary. The town will only have a small number of cop-bots spread throughout it. I want you three to stay with me so we can find a safe place to occupy while the rest of the army clears the town. You will fight only if necessary." Knuckles said. Sonic rolled his eyes and mumbled a "fine". Knuckles nodded and went to prepare himself.

OOOOOOOOOO

The servitor class robot raised its head as the first ship docked off of the schedule.

"*BZZZT* SCHEDULING ERROR *BZZZT* PLEASE IDENTIFY YOUR-" A racket off shots demolished its center, and the boats load of freedom fighters began to get off.

"Astounding subtlety." Sonic said to Knuckles as they walked off last.

"I messed up the fire setting once in fifteen years." Knuckles snapped back. Turning, he used single shots to disable the rest of the port's various servitors before they could call an alarm. As the other ships came in Knuckles turned on the radio and began trying to coordinate the army's spread throughout the town to make sure nothing was missed. As he did so he maneuvered himself and the three to a nearby warehouse, where they had the thrill of disabling a whole five cop-bots. Knuckles had them barricade in a back corner while he continued to try and coordinate efforts. A half hour after they first declared the town clear there was another outburst of fighting against the cop-bots assigned to guard the various factories in the town.

After it was all done, Knuckles led the three back into the open air, and met back up with the rest of the freedom fighters.

"That was sloppy." He said. "You showed no coordination, no discipline, and you didn't even think to check the factories. Because of that we need to leave here soon to find a quieter location." He found himself looking at a wall of blank faces. "What?"

"Maybe it's the fact you never told us to do that until we had already started." Sonic said. Knuckles grabbed his arms together to keep from punching him and mentally cursed himself. He had thought it would be obvious. As he noticed a large number of skunks gathering, he realized the locals had no idea what was happening.

"Does anyone speak English?" he asked.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Hey, be careful man. You're gonna' kill the poor the thing."

"But I'm scared."

"Don't take it out on the poor frog." The large, dark blue cat frowned and carefully put the frog back into his waist pack, where it poked its head out before quickly falling asleep. Turning back to face his companion, a green bird in a leather jacket, he started rubbing his hands together nervously without the frog to focus on.

"What are they doing here?"

"I don't know." The bird said. He glanced back to the attackers in the town's center, where a pink hedgehog had begun speaking French in fits and pauses. "Stay quiet and we can ask." The cat kept his mouth shut by force of his hands, but began to bounce from one foot to the other out of nervousness. When the hedgehog finished whatever she had said, the bird motioned with his hand and lead the cat over to them. Clearing the throat he began talking, trying to remember at least enough Mobian English to make sense.

"Hello, my name's Jet and my companion here is called Big, and I am very sorry to trouble you guys, but Big and I speak English, so we will need a separate explanation on what is happening." The hedgehog nodded, bit her lip, and began talking in a near jumble of Mobian accenting that took the bird a small bit of thinking to understand.

"Er, we're part of an armed revolt against the Robotnik and we just took this town, but you should return to whatever you were normally doing."

"Oh, that's interesting. This place really could use a revolt or two. Well, we were just held over because I was not informed about the 'no money, no performances' stuff they have over here, and I think Big ended up on the boat by accident."

"Really?" The hedgehog asked.

"It was a good place to fish." Big said before walking off. The hedgehog turned her attention back to Jet and cleared her throat.

"So you two were only visiting?"

"My plan was to do a tour of this continent, but when I got here I found out that paid performances were illegal and got detained, along with Big here."

"What kind of performances?" the hedgehog asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Trick boarding." Jet said, raising himself notably. "You see, I am _the_ Jet Hawk." The hedgehog stared at him blankly, causing him to slump again. "I'm big back in Neworld."

"Of course."

"Yeah, so… I'd really like to get back to Neworld as soon as possible, so if you guys could, like, go take out a seaside port during your whole rebellion and all, I'd really appreciate it." He looked back up to see the hedgehog staring at him open mouthed. "How about I join you guys until then." A metal wrapped hand fell on Jet's shoulder, causing him to jerk to standing straight in an instant.

"Do you know anything about the area?" the person behind him asked.

"Some…" Jet said carefully turning his head to look at the echidna behind him, clearly older than the rest of the rebels.

"You're in then. What about your friend?"

"He has my maps."

"I see. We'll be heading to Spire first, and we'll see about your ride later. Be ready in an hour." Taking the hand away, the echidna walked off to talk with three hedgehogs, while Jet walked over to Big and stuffed several pamphlets into the cat's waist pack.

"Can you hold onto these please?" Jet said quickly, before immediately turning to walk somewhere else.


	18. Chapter 17

**A/N: New formatting style for dividing viewpoints. Should make uploading easier.**

* * *

Chapter 17

Sleet nodded, said "yes" several times with decreasing enthusiasm, and finally put the radio set back in his pocket.

"What's happening?" Dingo asked.

"There was a complete clearing of cop-bots from a port in Thran's north-east. We missed the rebels."

"So, what we gonna' do now?"

"Catch them." Sleet said, carefully refraining from killing his partner.

=--------=

Sonic grumbled a he marched through the Thran countryside. Everyone was moving slowly _again_, and the Neworlder leading them through the country was so… stuck up. He kept feeling the need to talk about his "cool" and "dangerous" boarding. Sonic stomped the ground angrily. People had _died_ in this war. This worst part was really that people actually listened to him. Eagerly, every day, and then endlessly repeated whatever he said, because the bird was just _so_ exotic. And he was definitely laying the accent on thick.

"Hey man, you're gonna' get left behind." Sonic frowned. The cat was just stupid. And obsessed with fishing. Though Sonic had managed to get some of the fish he cooked once, and it was good. Compared to the Northern rations they had been eating recently it was the most perfect food ever made, so Knuckles let the cat fish, but only when they had finished marching for a day.

They had been marching for maybe a week when they reached another city, with a squadron of cop-bots circling its outskirts. Five shots quickly disabled them, but the damage was already done.

"He knows where we're headed." Knuckles said simply. "Jet, I thought you said we'd avoid any cities." The bird twisted and maneuvered his maps hurriedly, eventually responding.

"I don't think it's on here."

"Now we'll have to fight through this city. Split up, and remember what to do. Keep track of where you've cleaned and _don't_ forget the factory guards. Shanks, you know what to do. Everyone clear?" There was a mass of nodding heads. "Good. Jet, Big, you and those three we'll stay with me and try to secure the city's control unit for the cop-bots. It's the safest place, so _don't_ complain." The bird nodded, while the cat just stared at him blankly. Everyone was quiet for a few minutes.

"Let's move." Sonic shouted abruptly. Everyone turned and ran towards the city.

=--------=

Sonic ran behind a trash bin and waited for the rest of his group to catch up.

"Clear." Manic said, and Sonic ran until he could duck into an alley, letting the rest file after him. There was a crashing noise at the trash bin, and Sonic frowned. Did they really need the cat? As Manic reached the alley he took another look behind him.

"Cop-bots the way we came." Knuckles was nodding. Obviously he was beginning to tolerate the three doing anything. Sonic poked his head out the other side.

"More on this side."

"We're trapped then." Sonia said. "We'll need to go inside a house."

"That one." Knuckles said, pointing at a side door in the alley. They went in and found no one inside, and reached the other side of the house. "No door to the other one. We'll have to go out." Manic went to a window and checked.

"Cop-bots are past us. We're clear." Sonic took the lead again as the group left the house, making its way down the street as far as it could. The sound of distant gunshots confirmed that the other freedom fighters had begun fighting, drawing attention away from his group. Another squadron of cop-bots made them duck inside a nearby alley, but by then they had already been seen.

"*BZZZT*POSSESSION OF WEAPONRY *BZZZT* FIREARMS *BZZZT* FREE-" The lead machine was silenced by a burst of rounds from Sonic's tracer, and the cop-bots responded in kind. Sonic ducked back into the alley as the bullets rained in, embedding in the wall. The cat was shrieking like a little girl with a very deep voice.

"Be quiet." Knuckles hissed from the other end of the alley, and big clamped his mouth shut. "How old are you?" he mumbled as he turned back to watching for more cop-bots.

"Uh, twelve." Big replied after some consideration. Knuckles stared at the cat, easily two heads taller than him, and then at the cat's companion.

"Twelve?" Knuckles hissed.

"He looked older." Jet replied defensively.

"Well I can see that. You two hide in a house and don't leave under any circumstance. Understand?"

"Yes."

"My path's clear. Get lost." Knuckles nodded as Jet and Big ran past, and glanced over to where the three were still exchanging fire with the cop-bots. After minute the fire stopped and Sonic confirmed they were clear.

"We can't keep going at this pace." Manic said. "We'll need to take the roofs."

"Can your siblings do that?" Knuckles asked.

"Yeah." Sonic replied testily.

"I see. We can get to the fire escape from inside the house." The group quickly filed out of the alley and inside the house, keeping watch for more cop-bots. They made their way upstairs and out a window onto the houses fire escape, quickly making their way to the roof.

Two young skunks, who had almost minutes before been alerted about the violent rebels by the viewer, poked their heads out from under the couch.

"Are they gone yet?" the younger one asked in French. The older one pushed both of them back under the couch.

"They might come back and look for us again."

=--------=  
Sonia stumbled as she reached the other side of a gap but Knuckles grabbed her and pulled her up. The group quickly worked their way over to the next gap, while Knuckles scanned for the city's jail, the most likely location for the cop-bot's control unit. Spotting a large grey block surrounded by concrete walls and small turrets, he pointed it out and the group started moving towards it. On opposite rooftops they could see other groups of freedom fighters eliminating cop-bot squads. After a few more blocks of going by roof, they were forced to descend to the street to continue.

They chose to avoid the cop-bot squadrons they met on the way, trying to speed up their journey there. When they finally reached the jail they found the gates open. Manic went to an edge to check if the way was clear, and then lead them into the courtyard. Knuckles led them to the closest set of doors, and covered them as they filed inside. Sonic disabled a servitor operating a computer in the first room. Knuckles closed the door behind him as he entered, and the group filed through the first room into the second, a short hallway leading to a metal door clearly marked in French. Sonia went up to the sign and translated it for everyone else.

"Warning: Mark Seven Enforcers Storage. Keep Out." They opened the door hesitantly, revealing a row of cop-bots lined up to leave through a larger door. Sonic's gun was the first one up and firing as the group ducked to the side of the doors. The cop bots turned in groups of five and fired back, forcing them to close the door. The group retreated to the lobby and shut its doors, hearing the cop-bots begin to break through.

"Reinforcements." Knuckles said. "If they get out it will leave us with even bigger problems to take this city." Manic had already rushed to the computer the servitor had been operating, and was pressing buttons furiously. "What are you doing? We need to get to the main computer." Knuckles growled.

"I think this is the main computer." Manic replied.

"What? It can't be that small."

"Okay, then its connected to the main computer, or whatever the control unit for the cop-bots is. But, just think about it. Why else would they have a computer right next to the cop-bots' storage?" Knuckles frowned as he tried to think it over, and his eyes widened when he figured it out.

"Can you find the function to shut all the cop-bots down?"

"Uh, why would they have one of those?" Sonic asked. Knuckles cursed as he realized that he had a point.

"Okay then, can you figure out how to do _something_." Knuckles said.

"I'm working on it." Manic said. "But I'd just like to remind you that my education in this field was mostly along the lines of breaking into safes." Manic resumed pressing buttons furiously, while the rest of the group kept watch for more cop-bots. There was a crash as the first door to the storage was broken, and the door in the lobby was soon being hammered by the same cop-bots. Meanwhile, another group was had come to the front and was beginning to bash that set of doors too.

"Hey, repairs can be ordered manually." Manic said obliviously.

"Nobody cares." Knuckles yelled, quickly glancing between the two sets of doors. A few more buttons were pressed, and the banging stopped.

=--------=

Big was nearly squeezing his frog in terror while bullets flew over head after Jet decided to take some potshots at cop-bots outside.

"Dude, why the poor frog?" Jet yelled, covering his head to keep out the noise."

"Because Froggy keeps me safe."

"What?" as Jet yelled it, he realized the gunfire had stopped. Daring to peek out the window, he was quite surprised to see the cop-bots walking away.

=--------=

"Yeah, it's not going to take too long for the bots to figure out they don't need repairs, so we should really kinda' hurry." Manic said. Knuckles radioed the rest of the freedom fighters and began having them move to the far side of the city. Sonia had to remind him to have Jet and Big picked up, and they were eventually found and escorted by another group. Knuckles led the three out of the city and they rejoined with the rest of the freedom fighters. Sonic found himself being hassled by Amy about whether he was okay; while she cheerfully ignored her own bandaged shoulder. There were a few other injuries throughout the army, but luckily no one was seriously hurt or killed. They resumed marching as quickly as possible, hoping to avoid a re-sighting by the city's cop-bots.

=--------=

Sleet let out another angry sigh as he and his companion trudged along the dirt "road" on their way to the port. The U.F. had nice, paved paths, railroads, and dirt paths with out rocks every where. This place seemed to make an active effort to look like the middle of nowhere, when it right across from on of the most industrialized countries in the world. And that was before it got taken over by the nutcase with the robots. Something odd suddenly struck him.

"Dingo, I just realized that we don't have a plan for killing the heirs yet." He said

"I thought we'd just do the usual."

"But we need some sort of plan. After all, they practically are the rebels."

"Freeze in the name of the revolution." A voice yelled out. The heavy acornian accent betrayed the speaker, a female squirrel standing in the middle of the road pointing a machine gun at them.

"Look," Sleet said continuing to walk forward with his hands in the air. "Let's be reasonable now."

"I said freeze." The squirrel said, tightening her grip on the gun as Sleet nearly reached her.

"I just want to explain something." Sleet hands moved fast, grabbing the rifle and ramming the butt into her face, twisting it around and knocking her down with the barrel. He pointed the barrel at her face as the other squirrels started to leave the woods, and they froze. Glancing back, he saw his partner standing over a rabbit.

"Interesting company." Sleet said. "Now let me save you all some time. You will not be slipping into Mobius while the Robotnik's distracted by his local revolution because they were going to do that, so he locked up Mobius tight. Now, you really should be more careful next time someone suddenly starts talking about something you're interested in for no apparent reason, it's a very obvious trap. Also, try not to let me get so close next time. Really bad move. Actually you probably should have shot me to begin with. Now, let's both go our ways, both of us the wiser from this little encounter."

Sleet kept the gun pointed at the rebels as he walked back from them, with Dingo following shortly behind. The squirrels pulled themselves up and ran away from them. When they were well away Sleet turned back to the road, satisfied that the rebels had quit following them. He probably wouldn't be telling the Robotnik about that silly incident; he had wasted enough time as it was.


	19. Chapter 18

**Author Note: Sorry for the short chapter. Just seemed the natural end. Read and Review, please.**

* * *

Chapter 18

"I think we can all agree that this was an unprecedented disaster." The squirrel said in her native Spanish. The other rebels nodded glumly "We do know something important, however."

"Really." One of the rebels said. "Sounded obvious to me."

"Be quiet. We know _who_ was sent to kill the Mobian royalty, and we can warn them, _because they must be in Thran since the assassins are here_." She added the last lines hurriedly, before someone could interject again. "And they'll probably be heading towards Spire."

=--------=

"Oh, I remember one time, this is good, I got dared to do a jump over the Rio Grande, which is this big river in the middle of Neworld. The thing's so big, you can't call it anything other than 'the big river', which is what Rio Grande means in Spanish by the way," One of the humans around him quickly wrote it down on a notepad she had inconspicuously acquired in the last city. "But as I was saying, I got this dare and I never turn a dare down, but I knew this would be hard, cause at some points this thing is miles wide-"

"But you jumped the smallest point." Sonic yelled loud enough for everyone to hear. Jet turned and glared at him as fiercely as possible, regretting his lost chance to word it more positively.

"How could you know?" He said.

"'Cause you're a-" Whatever Sonic would have said was silenced by a quick jab from his sister. He turned his head back and sighed.

"Why do you have to be so racist?" Manic said.

"I'm not being-" Sonic started.

"Oh, so it's 'cause he's green, huh? I see how it is."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I dunno. I'm not the one hating on green people."

"Will you just shut up?" Sonic yelled, Manic broke out laughing and rolled onto his back, while Sonic sighed. This was without a doubt the lamest war in the history of the world, with them spending weeks marching and a sum total of three real battles. Thankfully it seemed that they only had another week of marching before they reached Spire. Also, Knuckles forgot to inform anyone about his master plan, but Sonic could make a pretty clear idea of what it was. Obviously they were trying to find an easier way into Mobius.

=--------=

"Now, I want to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer them." Sleet said. "And its clear you can understand what I'm saying, so don't even try to play dumb." The skunk just turned up his nose. First the arrogant bird and the idiot cat sat around fishing all day, now a wolf and… something were basically threatening him.

"I do not believe you have any authority here." The skunk replied.

"Actually, I have the highest in this country." Sleet replied, pulling out a sheaf of papers prepared just for this occasion and handing them to the skunk. The skunk ran his eyes over the lines and finally muttered a few words in French before handing them back to Sleet.

"I can't honestly believe he's hired you ruffians just to hunt down three kids."

"Hey, there's a reason the guy is where he is, and I'm not in a position to argue. Really, he managed to make this whole system by himself; he should know what a few people could do. Anyways, I just want to know where their army went, but if you don't like talking to me my pal here could do it instead." At that moment Dingo happened to be inspecting his shotgun, and pulled it up as he heard himself mentioned. The skunk rolled his eyes.

"They're going to Spire."

"Why thank you." Sleet said before turning and leaving the town with Dingo. When he was well outside of town, he paused and fired at the most likely place for someone to be watching them from, but no one was there. Meanwhile, the watcher barely noticed it as he reviewed what he had learned.

_Spire was the former capital of Thran, and still acted as the central fountain from which the Robotnik's law was sent out into the country. From there they could disrupt the functioning of all machines in the country, sending it into chaos and probably cutting off many from the only food source left. It was only one of the many things they might do if not stopped. _

=--------=

"Woah, that's one big house." Manic said. It had been around a week of marching since the last battle, but hey had finally found some sign of civilization; a giant gated mansion that Jet assured them meant they were near Spire. "Noble?"

"Definitely." Sonic said. "Anyone you know?"

"No." Sonia said. "Even nobles have a hard time traveling under the Robotnik."

"Ah, it must be so hard for them." Manic began, but Sonic jabbed him before a fight could break out.

"We're going in." Knuckles said.

"Looking for some payback? I heard these guys supported the Robotnik's revolution."

"Actually I just need someone who could get us into the palace." Knuckles said. Jet got a dejected look on his face.

"That works too, I guess." He said with a shrug. Knuckles waved in the air to move the freedom fighters forward.

"Come on." The army marched around the walls and to the gate. Knuckles pushed it and found it to be locked. The momentum of the moment disappeared. There was a _click_ and the creaking of un-oiled hinges, leading everyone to look at where Manic had opened a cellar door. "That works too, I guess."

=--------=

The butler walked hurriedly away from the kitchen as an echidna and several hedgehogs burst up from the cellar, holding one of the cooks hostage. The master would not be pleased with this. He walked briskly through the hallways, avoiding the ruffians as they ran around the mansion, continually being told by one of their own not to break or steal anything, which saved him the trouble. He made his way to the second floor lounge, where the master was entertaining one of his friends from Mobius.

"Well, it seems you got out just in time." The master was saying as the butler arrived.

"I know. I can almost see the rebel's point of view." The friend said.

"On that note, sirs, I would like to inform you that the rebels are here."

"In Thran?" The master asked, never the most intelligent. "I think I remember hearing that."

"No. Here, as in they are currently taking this mansion." There was a loud _boom_ as the door to the lounge was rudely kicked open, and several hedgehogs walked in pointing their odd machine guns.

"Hold still and no one gets hurt." A pink one said in rather impressive French. The Mobian friend dropped his mouth and stuttered a few times before saying,

"Sonia?" The pink hedgehog that had been making the demand lowered her gun a small bit and raised an eyebrow.

"Bartleby? What are you doing here?" She said in English.

"Getting out of Mobius. It's a nightmare these days. The Robotnik suddenly started confiscating random nobles' property and moving them into these dismal apartments. And they're being forced to be slaves in his factories." The butler noted how the oldest echidna seemed to be glaring threateningly at most of the rebels by this point. "I was lucky to get out when I could."

"Would… you happen to know what happened to my mother?" Sonia asked, lowering her gun all the way and standing straight.

"As far as I know the same as anyone else who was still in Mobius, nothing out of the ordinary."

"Okay." Sonia said nodding. The room was silent for a few seconds, but the echidna was cut off when she started talking again. "So, why did you forget to mention that we were engaged?" Sonia nearly yelled the last part. No one spoke in reply, and Sonia simply kept talking. "I mean, honestly I might not have minded as much if mother had _mentioned_ she was already looking, but instead she just pushes us together and forgets to say anything, and _you_ didn't say anything either."

"Um, honestly I was just trying to avoid, well, this situation pretty much, not the one with the rebels, of course…" A rather awkward silence fell as Sonia remembered the situation she was in.

"Now that we've gotten past that interesting situation, can we please go back to the matter at hand?" The oldest echidna said, stepping to the front of the rebels. "Where's the owner of this place?" Bartleby quickly pointed at the master. "The wolf?" The echidna asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We had the misfortune to be on vacation when the Robotnik decided to invade." The wolf said in English, while a bird with the rebels nodded appreciatively, probably having had a similar experience.

"I… don't believe Neworld has a nobility." The echidna said.

"Oh, yes, well my father was already rich, so we fit in… somewhat."

"I see. Well, you're going to get us into the castle."

"I'll what?"

"You will be getting us into the castle, preferably without us turning all of Spire into a battlefield." The wolf was beginning to shiver.

"I don't really think I can help you. No one's really able to visit the king anymore, and besides, I think he's currently seeing a guest-"

"A guest?"

"I don't know. I really don't think there's any way I could-" The echidna took a few quick steps forward and was holding the wolf's neck in one hand, the other one raised to punch him.

"You're lying." He yelled. "You just thought of something but won't admit it."

"Um," Bartleby began, glancing hesitantly at Sonia. "I think I might have an idea actually." The echidna took his hands off the wolf and turned to face him.

"What?"


	20. Chapter 19

**Author Note: This chapter should get the plot moving again. Read and review, please.**

* * *

Chapter 19

"I have seen some stupid plans in my time. I have been the originator of some stupid plans." Manic said "I have never seen a plan which involves us wearing _fake hair_ as a disguise."

"Historically, hedgehogs put a good deal more attention into their head-spikes than most other anthropomorphic species." Sonia explained. "Hiding our head spikes is nearly as effective as a mask to hide our identity."

"Does it have to be so itchy?" Sonic said.

"Well, they were designed with shaved heads in mind so this was bound to happen. Just don't break it; that's an artifact you're wearing."

"Seriously, anyone who collects fake hair as a hobby needs to see a few broken." Manic mumbled. Knuckles looked away from where the three were adjusting their wigs to glare at Bartleby. It had turned out that the guest wanted live music during his discussions with the "overseer" of Thran, its former king, and had been very obstinate about the musicians the king had already found. Apparently this had been such an important issue that Bartleby's friend had been able to arrange a performance for the next day. Knuckles found it lucky that he had let the three keep their instruments with them. Except for the drum of course.

"You better hope you were right about what you heard. A plan which involves my three very important assets directly approaching someone whose allegiance we don't know yet, using some of the flimsiest disguises I have ever seen, is bound to not end well." Knuckles said.

"It isn't really about covering the hair." Bartleby said, not quite trusting Knuckles's self-control after the echidna's display back in the lounge. "Imitating human hair was really only something nobility did, and I don't think there were that many hedgehogs who did it anyway, and there's also the more… fancy clothes. From what I can tell the Robotnik's expecting wild anarchists, not people looking highly sophisticated and purposely imitating nobles. I couldn't tell Sonia apart until she started speaking because of that… normal outfit, so I don't think the king or whoever his guest is will be able to tell who they are just by looking at them, and they won't know what the three sound like either." Knuckles face showed a mix of confusion and admiration. "What?"

"You actually thought this out." Knuckles said. Bartleby chose to not touch upon what that implied and nodded. "Are you sure your bud can get them there?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Just make sure he knows that they _will_ be traveling armed, and that I _will _be watching." Bartleby frowned as he tried to picture where the rifles could be hidden. It would be amazingly difficult.

"There bringing machine guns?"

"No, they- wait, never mind." Knuckles said, trying to actually keep some things hidden from the noble. _Pistols then._ Bartleby thought. _So they will be able to defend themselves._ The three finished donning their "disguises" and were led to the waiting transportation.

=--------=

Sonia took the chance to look around the city of Spire as the horseless carriage wove through its streets. It was certainly more picturesque overall than Mobius City, with more room given for houses, more household plants, and generally more Reemergence era houses, with far less modern ones than Mobius city. This only made the occasional factory look all the more aberrant in contrast. She turned away to look at her brothers. Sonic's head was bent over as he tapped his foot on the ground, and Manic was still making faces at Bartleby's friend Antoine. Personally she thought he was rather nice overall, and he was also being amazingly brave to help out the freedom fighters. The others probably put it down to Knuckles's "persuasion", but she felt that even then the wolf was being surprisingly helpful.

"What song?" Sonic said suddenly.

"Something older sounding." Manic said. "We only have Bartleby's word that the guest doesn't want classical."

"Ballad of the Green Knight?" Sonia suggested. "It starts out the same either way you do it, so we'll have time to judge his reaction."

"And we're going to hold them up anyways." Manic added. "It doesn't really matter how well we do." The rest of the three sighed and nodded sadly.

=--------=

The three finally arrived at Spire's central castle, which seemed more of a large mansion than an actual fortress like Mobius City's or Edmund's-Burrow's. They were let off at a side gate while the driver took the horseless carriage away. Antoine led them up to where a servitor robot was already waiting. Its speaker crackled and then said something in French. Antoine said something back that was obviously acceptable, because it turned, said something, and led them deeper into the castle. They were left in some form of practice room. It was far nicer than even the theater, with marble columns in the corners and a large mural of a skunk strumming a harp in the middle of a thunderstorm. It managed to be both awesome and silly at the same time.

"Come on, we need to start practicing." Sonia said, and Sonic pulled out and tuned his guitar while Manic checked the drums they had been loaned. The three practiced short snatches of the different songs making up the Ballad until they were called by a servitor bot to come up to the even more impressive meeting room, with golden chandeliers, golden wall candles, and gold candle holders on the central table that made Sonia jab Manic in the stomach to keep his attention. Apparently the room was being set up entirely by servitor robots.

=--------=

Sleet and Dingo walked down the streets of the most recent city, a nice industrial one more like what they were used to. It even had the occasional abandoned warehouse. It had been rather easy to talk around and find out what happened. Rebels came, the enforcers that were supposed to fight them suddenly ran off, the rebels left, and then everything was back to normal minus a few robots. The kids were still heading towards Spire, and from there they would probably start heading north again in varying conditions, but they had habit of avoiding cities so… Sleet twitched around and pulled out a gun to point behind him.

"Do you see him?" Dingo asked.

"No." Sleet said. The two of them _knew_ someone was following them, but whoever it was must have been very good at hiding, because they hadn't found him yet. The watcher waited for them to start walking again and continued following. _It is a risk that they know I'm here, but it was inevitable. As long as they never see me it is only suspicion, which cannot be acted upon. It is becoming definite that thugs like these are too likely to make the death a martyrdom. I must be the one to do it._

=--------=

The three were ready when the king and his guest arrived. The king was a tall skunk dressed in a surprisingly plain business suit. The guest was a tall human, barely an adult, with a small pair of glasses, a bald that was barely covered by a comb-over, and the small beginnings of a mustache. Surprisingly, he looked rather much like the Robotnik. Sonia started the song with the chant, low and soft, as she neared the end they could easily tell the guest was rolling his eyes, and Sonic dove into the opening bars of the guitar part, causing the guest to sit up quite suddenly. As the song fell into a regular flow, the guest and the king started talking. Surprisingly enough it was in English, and mostly about a rebellion in Acorn that had migrated north to Thran. Ironically the Mobian freedom fighters were also brought up.

=--------=

Edward Gareth Goering leaned back in his chair as his conversation with the overseer of Thran hit a lull and the music hit a good part. After the guitar solo ended he decided to move onto small talk, seeing as they both really only had the Mark Seven Enforcers available and were already waiting on petitions.

"They're wearing wigs, right?" He said. The skunk nodded. "Why is that?"

"Don't know." The skunk shrugged. "Wigs were started a few hundred years ago. When humans started reemerging it became very popular to imitate them, including the amazingly complex… hair." The skunk obviously could remember the last time he had made a comment on Edward's hair, but this time it was clearly just part of the conversation, so Edward let it go. "It was mostly a noble thing though. That and it was only in fashion for a few decades. Their sponsor probably gave them the wigs to look higher class." Edward nodded and leaned forward. He was able to control Acorn remotely for now, but he probably should be returning to his jurisdiction soon, despite really wanting to be seen making an active effort to handle the rebels.

"You know, I've been dabbling in Pre-Armageddon zoology, and couldn't help but notice that there didn't seem to be any skunk equivalent in the wild animals of Thran." Actually he had seen that tidbit mentioned in a scholarly journal from the U.F., but he was close enough. The skunk merely shrugged.

"Perhaps. Perhaps the scientists have no clue what they're looking for." The skunk said. Edward simply nodded, failing to think up a quick response.

"You know." He said, glancing at the musicians. They were starting to reach the songs climax, the guitar coming in heavier than before. "Weren't the Mobian rebels a band? The leaders I mean."

"I believe I remember being told that." The skunk said. Edward stared at the musicians some more. Come to think of it, there were three specific leaders, though there hair was much more distinct… Edwards face dropped as his mind made several logic leaps involving obscured hair, fur color, and instrumentation.

"Guards." Edward yelled. The blue one was quick, slinging his guitar on his back, pulling out a hand gun, and reaching Edward to press it under his chin.

=--------=

"We've made our move." Sonia said over the radio.

"Affirmed." Knuckles said. "We're moving out." He motioned to the kids behind him, and they began moving deeper into Spire. He changed his radio's channel, and told the stalker girl to start the distraction. They had found a stonework house which could easily be held against the city's cop-bots while still being able to escape from the roof. That would help siphon robots away from the palace and out of Knuckles's unit's way.

Knuckles led his unit through the streets, moving from alley to rooftop to alley, careful to avoid any cop-bots in their path. Getting involved in a fire fight would only slow them down and make an escape more difficult.

=--------=

"I knew you shouldn't have let a Neworlder stay in this country." The human yelled to the skunk. "It was a betrayal waiting to happen."

"Actually, you'd be surprised what a few well pointed guns can get you." Sonia said, keeping her gun covering the room's entranceways while Manic grabbed the skunk by one arm.

"What's going on here?" the former king asked.

"We'll talk about it once we've gotten you out of here." Sonic said. "What do we do this one?" he asked, pushing the gun further into the human for emphasis.

"Easiest thing would be to kill him." Manic said. Both of his siblings glared at him. "Just saying. 'Course, then its gonna' be harder to hide what bloodthirsty killers we all are, 'cause this guys obviously gonna' be missed." The human squirmed at the heavy sarcasm in Manic's voice.

"Of course I'll be missed." He yelled. "I am the Robotnik's cousin once removed."

"Honestly, nobody cares." Sonic said. "You just happened to be in the way when we came."

"Now, where's the central computer." Manic asked the former king.

"Don't tell them." The human yelled. The skunk remained tight lipped looking at Manic uneasily. The green hedgehog slipped out a gun of his own and pointed it at the skunk.

"Look, we already have our people here, the only question is whether or not we fight our way out of the city." Manic said.

"Don't-"The human was quickly silenced by a swift kick to the shins from Sonic, knocking him onto the ground.

"Okay, I'll show you." The skunk finally said.

"Good." Sonic said. "Anyplace we could leave this guy?"

"The practice room only had one door." Sonia pointed out.

"I'm gonna' need help." Sonic said. Sonia quickly walked over and grabbed one of the human's arms while Sonic took the other. They dragged him down the halls to where the practice room had been, shoved him in, and let the former king lock the door.

"Right. Now, to the main computer." Manic said, shoving the former king for emphasis. The skunk nodded and walked in front as they walked down the halls.

=-------=

Amy looked behind her as she let the Scrat kid take over sniping cop-bots, seeing as he was better at it anyways. She went back to the ammo pile, where the owner of the house they were occupying was seated, sipping a glass of water. The house's viewer crackled to life and showed and amazingly fat, twenty-something human with glasses and a bad mustache, with an impressive mural of a storm behind him.

"Citizens of the Robotnik's system, your local overseer has betrayed you." He yelled. _What a dramatist._ Amy thought. "Fear not though, for I have remotely taken control of this country's computer systems to keep it under control, thwarting his and the rebels-he-has-consorted-with's plan to send this country in to chaos, something they are still unaware off, easily trapped." _Not for long, genius._ Amy pulled out the radio and contacted Sonia.

=--------=

As the three and the former king reached the terminal for Thran's central computer, Sonia's radio crackled to life. She pulled it out and put it to her ear.

"What? Fat kid… glasses… comb over…" She pulled it away and looked at the rest of the group. "The kid's accessed Thran's central computer somehow. He's taken over the country and declared the king here a traitor." Sonic turned and glared at the former king, who shuffled and tried to turn away before talking.

"It was some kind of handheld computer. He _told_ me it wouldn't be able to access Thran's computer, only Acorn's; something about differential frequencies or encryption. I honestly wasn't listening to him."

"He runs Acorn?" Manic asked.

"Yes." The skunk said. "Apparently the old king wasn't able to be trusted the same way I was."

"And now he's running this country." Sonia lifted the radio again and began a quick conversation with Knuckles. She put it down and told them what he said.

"Contact the North and tell them we need to get out of Thran in two weeks. Then get out of the palace."

"Can this computer contact the North?" Manic asked.

"As long as their computer is still intact." The former king replied.

"Right." Manic went over to the computer while Sonic and Sonia started barricading the room's door before the local cop-bots could come. Manic grabbed a microphone and began speaking into it.

"Hey. Hey? Hey! Anybody there?"

=--------=

Tails stood in by the computer the Robotnik had given the king of the North. Ever since the freedom fighters had left he been questioned again and again on how his plane worked, though finding all of the materials that had been used was proving difficult. The fact that the North was already working on replicates had force to christen his original "the Tornado" to distinguish it.

He had tried to tell them about the alternate source, but they had convinced him that there was probably something else he put in the plane without knowing what it did. They let him keep it mostly on the grounds that "It _is_ his, after all." In return they had let him fiddle around with the Robotnik's stuff they weren't using. He had worked on the old computer system, figuring it might be useful for spying or something. A call from Thran suddenly came up, with a tag saying "Rebel's need help". He took the radio headset as quickly as he could, before the call might disappear.

"Yes?" Manic's voice came from the headphones.

"Tails? What are you doing there?"

"They shot the computer because it came from the Robotnik. They let me fix it for fun.

"Ah man, we are so lucky. Look, tell the king we're having problems and need to get of here. We'll reach… Deppen in about a week, and we'll need to have some boats to pick us up. Got it?"

"Deppen?"

"Yes. Gotta' go." Tails put the headset down. Deppen, in… one weeks He needed to write that down _now_.

=--------=

"Did he get it?" Sonic yelled as the door shook again.

"Yeah." Manic said putting the headset down.

"Good, 'cause we need to be moving." Sonic pointed his gun at the center of the door and fired three shots. The shaking stopped. With a yell he pulled down the barricades and threw open the door.


	21. Chapter 20

**Author Note: Only a few more chapter's in this Act. Please send criticisms or it can't improve. Thank you.**

* * *

Chapter 20

Sonic shouldered the damaged cop-bot to the ground while his siblings fired at the ones behind it. As three of the remaining cop-bots stopped Sonic swung up his gun and emptied its clip into the last one.

"Where is Knuckles coming from?" Sonic asked.

"Same way we came in." Sonia said.

"Do you remember the way?"

"Yes."

"Take the lead."

Sonia went to the front as Sonic and Manic reloaded their clips and pushed the former king into the center of the formation. They started down the hallways of the palace, and began to hear the sound of tracer fire coming closer. As they turned a corner they saw Knuckles and a unit of freedom fighters firing at cop-bots from around a corner. The three hedgehogs ducked back to avoid loose bullets from their comrades, while the skunk frowned at the bullets burrowing into his property. Sonic poked around the corner to shoot a cop-bot from behind, distracting them long enough to be neatly finished by the freedom fighters. Knuckles's unit joined up with them, with some of the kids keeping watch so the leaders could talk.

"This is the king?" Knuckles asked, pointing at the skunk.

"Yeah." Sonic said. Knuckles turned to address the former king.

"Sorry, majesty, but this was the quickest way to get you out."

"Why do-" The king began to ask, but Knuckles pushed him to the ground as the rattle of gunfire started back up.

"Negotiations. We'll talk later." The gunfire stopped as the last of the latest cop-bots fell. They made their way to the outside of the palace, but as they opened the door several units of cop-bots were waiting for them. Knuckles and Sonic chose to quickly fire along the middle height of the cop-bots before ducking into cover like the rest of the kids, pulling the former king with them. Knuckles turned as he heard the clanking steps of cop-bots coming from the hallways.

"Tell me." He asked the king. "Did this kid ever mention knowing military tactics?"

"Maybe once or twice. Why?" The king asked.

"Cause he's had more training than I have then." Knuckles flattened against the wall and shot the first cop-bot to come around the corner. "Sonia, we're going to need help fast."

"Ha." Lisa yelled as she turned over a card that made the rest of the players wince. Sure she had rigged the deck, but so had they, so there was no love lost. There was nothing else to do since Knuckles had led a unit in to bail out Manic's band when they tried to kidnap the king, and the girl who kept stalking Manic's brother was heading up a distraction. Suddenly a radio crackled to life, and the annoying green bird was the first to pick it up.

"Hey, they need some more dudes." The bird yelled. "Apparently Amy can't get out after all, and all the big jobs need someone else to get them out. He's saying the gangsters should do it."

"Come on." Lisa moaned, brushing the cards away and standing up. "Anyone else want to come besides my gang?" there were a few, including an echidna and the human girl who was supposed to be the stalker girl's friend. "This'll work."

Amy kept her gun pointed at the roof as it shook again. She hadn't been able to tell precisely how the cop-bots had reached the roof, but she did see a larger machine with a stack of metal sheets on it. She figured if she waited long enough the guy would say what happened, seeing as he felt the need to give details about everything else. Her radio crackled to life and she ducked into the living room to listen to it.

"Hey Amy." The voice on the other end said.

"Yona?" Amy asked.

"Yeah. I got handed the radio since I'm not the best fighter here. We're clearing off your rooftop now and then moving on to help out Knuckles and the band."

"Okay… nice talking to you?"

"For given definition. Don't worry about Sonic, I'll make sure he gets back in perfect condition." Amy breathed in hard.

"Just couldn't resist, could you?"

"Nope."

"Boo-yah." Dalin yelled as he finished of the fork lift robot. Pretty clever using industrial equipment to make bridges over the rooftops, but that would only make this rescue team's time easier. The freedom fighters quickly ran over to the next roof top and paused to deal with another contingent of cop-bots sent to stop them. The human girl with the radio pulled off the metal sheet leading to the stone house, temporarily stopping cop-bots from reaching it again. Dalin helped finish off the last of the most recent cop-bots and then the freedom fighters were moving again, running a full two rooftops before having to stop to destroy more cop-bots. Dalin could see in the distance a factory rooftop where the cop-bots were coming from. They soon fought their way to the factory's roof, and destroyed another squad of cop-bots as it exited the elevator. The gangster girl who was running things took the liberty of shooting up everything inside the elevator, probably disabling it. As she walked out she pointed behind her.

"We'll have to finish this on the ground." She said. They shortly made their way down the factory's fire escape and paused before running to the next alleyway. They kept still as a unit of cop-bots walked by them, and then continued their advance towards the palace. They turned a corner and could see the palace just down the road, a crowd of cop-bots surrounding one point. Dalin glanced down his tracer's scope and opened fire, causing a few of the cop-bots to turn around and shoot at him. A rough hand grabbed him and pulled him back into the alley. The gangster attached to it started cussing him out for revealing themselves to soon, when time was suppose to be of the essence. She led them around by a different route to reach the cop-bots from a new angle.

Knuckles took a quick glance at the exit before turning to fire another burst down the hallway.

"We're clear to leave." Sonia yelled as she put her radio down. Manic shoved the door open and dragged the king out as the other kids followed, while Knuckles stayed to fend off the advancing cop-bots. As he took out the last of the latest batch to be sent at them he turned and ran out the door, slamming it behind him and joining up with the combined group of freedom fighters. He quickly started yelling out directions.

"Sonia, call the other group and tell them we're pulling out. We'll have to stay on the street the entire time; the king won't be able to make the jump between rooftops. If we keep in cover we shouldn't have any problems.

Big looked through the bags, seeing as there was no place to fish and nothing else to do. He found a box with a large glowing ring in it, so he took out the ring and started throwing it in the air and catching it, seeing how many times he could do so before dropping it. He had worked his way up to five catches before everyone came back, and the old echidna with the brass knuckles was with them. The echidna immediately started yelling at him to put it back, so Big put it back before the echidna could yell anymore or start hitting him. He tried to look as small as possible as he shuffled into a corner, but he knew it would be hard to do with so many of the little hedgehogs around and only a few humans. If he was lucky people would start ignoring him again.

Knuckles watched the wolf pace back and forth impatiently. Bartelby sat in a chair, flicking his fingers back and forth. The king of Thran was standing still to the side, nodding absently. The silence that surrounded the manor was finally broken by Sonic.

"So, king-dude, what's your name." The king took a few seconds to realize that Sonic was talking to him and another few to realize he had never actually said his name.

"Oh, uh… Geoffrey. Geoffrey Saint John."

"Cool. Doesn't sound very Thranish." Sonic said. King John put his hand up and rubbed his forehead. "Oh. Hear that a lot?"

"Yes." John said. Knuckles clapped his hands together in irritation.

"Enough with the small talk. We need to get moving quickly, and we honestly should have left already. Antoine, you've probably already been marked as working with us. Your staff can probably fend for themselves."

"Indeed." Said a butler that Knuckles hadn't even realized was there.

"Bartleby, you-"

"Will have to come with." Sonia said. Her brothers looked at her suspiciously. "This kid…"

"Edward Goering." John clarified. "And he's not really a kid."

"Edward, can probably look up that you visited here, and judging from his accusation at the king, probably think you are collaborating to."

"Oh, bother." Bartleby said.

"At least you know how to shoot." Sonia said.

"Oh, right." Bartleby mumbled. Knuckles nodded and took back the lead

"Now that that's sorted out, we need to get moving. Antoine, we'll be taking some of your food as supplies, seeing how we have developed a habit of picking up random people. Noble people, I hope you know how to walk."

The watcher leaned back against a tree, listening to the sounds that sped through the forest. Leaves rustled from the wind, bugs hummed and chattered, animals pattered over dead leaves. Behind him a fire burned in the center of the dirt road, around which the two hunters that he followed talked again.

"So, what should we do with the kids when we find them?" Sleet said. The watcher stayed where he was. It was clearly a trick to lure him out. He kept his temperament, not letting his position be revealed.

"On the knees execution?" Dingo suggested.

"Nah." Sleet replied. "Too tricky. They've got a small army with them, and that older echidna will probably be too good to just avoid. It needs to be something quicker. Hey, or we could take them away from the group and figure out what to do later." Sleet said. Dingo shook his head.

"I couldn't carry all of them." He said.

"I got it." Sleet said repositioning himself. "We kidnap one, and use them to lure out the other two. Got any one you'd think be best?"

"Well, the girl is really pretty." Dingo said. The watcher suppressed a shudder at the obscenity of the thought. He didn't know what the orange one was, but it certainly wasn't a hedgehog. Sleet coarsely mumbled a need to relieve himself, and ran into the woods towards the watcher. It was clear that his hurry would have him totally ignore the watcher, giving time to reposition and miss detection on the return journey. The watcher gasped as the wolf's foot suddenly spun into his neck._ He must have heard the shudder. How could I let-_ the watcher cut off his mental tirade as Sleet grabbed his arms and dragged him up, the watcher shifting into a dark yellow color. The being kicked at the wolf's shins that simply weaved away as Dingo came and grabbed the watcher's legs. The two bounty hunters carried the watcher into the firelight and threw him on the ground, revealing it to be a chameleon. They quickly brought out their guns to keep him in place.

"Ha. Knew it was a ninja." Sleet said.

"A ninja?" Dingo said fearfully.

"Not a real one. Just a clan of assassins who decided to take the name, right?" Sleet said, nodding towards the captive. The chameleon had evened out his breathing, and was slowly fading into a dark purple. He shrugged his shoulders expressively.

"It is true we are not the legendary warriors, but I do not know where our name was drawn from."

"Right." Sleet said. He jerked the gun up once to punctuate his question. "Now, who you after?"

"I am here to kill the three leaders of the Mobian revolution." The chameleon said. "I have no grudge against you."

"You just don't like how we were gonna' do it?" Dingo said. The chameleon looked at him quietly for a few seconds before responding.

"Yes." Sleet laughed and lowered his gun. "You're still caught up on that? That was just to freak you out, right Dingo?"

"Right." The orange anthro said distantly.

"Now." Sleet said. "My job's just to make sure the three kids end up dead, and how that happens is up to me. If you can figure out a better way to do it, that's fine by me. Though I think you need our help finding them, right?" The chameleon looked to the ground and suppressed a flash of black across his features.

"Yes." He said.

"Okay then, you can come with us. By the by kid, what should we call you by?" Sleet said as he sat back down for the night. The chameleon flashed black and faded back to purple quickly, suppressing his anger.

"I am Espio Altair, student of Master Mil-Lah, ninja of the tenth circle." The chameleon said. Sleet popped his head up from a sleeping position to pose one last question.

"Tenth order: that good or bad?" the wolf said. The chameleon bowed his head and answered.

"It is the lowest circle a full ninja can be in."

"That's what I figured." Sleet said, leaning his head back on the ground. Espio went over to a tree and leaned back against it for the night. There was no purpose anymore in avoiding the hunters, and they would probably find him useful enough to give him free reign. He let himself fade into sleep quickly.

"So they escaped?" the Robotnik said.

"Yes." Edward replied. After having a unit of servitors release him he had gone to Thran's converted throne room, where the communicator to the other overseer's, including his distant uncle, was located.

"And you did not pursue?"

"Thran's reserves of cop-bots were severely depleted in the attack. I am planning to have them intercepted at the next city they eneter."

"Did the rebels suffer any casualties?"

"Not that I am aware of."

"I see." The Robotnik said darkly. Edward took a soft-boiled egg from the bowl behind him. Leading the defense against the rebels had made him hungry, and he had been pleased to find the eggs in the palace's storerooms.

"Do not worry, uncle, I have every reason to state that I am perfectly in control of this situation." With a single flick Edward made a crack along the entire egg's length.


	22. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The old echidna leaned back in the bench, enjoying the presence of the pretty young woman next to him. Sure she was a mouse, but he was probably four times her age already, so it wasn't like he ever had a chance. For the moment it was good to simply take a break from his task at hand. He hadn't felt this old in a long time, but swimming across the Channel had been hard on him, not to mention having to find new clothes. Of course, everyone gave him odd looks in the old ones, so it was probably for the best.

It was a nice little town he was resting in, quaint and slow. The bench looked in on an old fountain that sat at the center of the town, barely a trickle of water flowing out the top.

"So," the echidna asked in English. "Why are you here?"

"Business." The mouse replied. Her Tsarminian accent was good, but so was her English. She probably used the accent to dissuade people from bothering her.

"What do you do?"

"Gems." The answer sparked the echidna's interest.

"Really? Doesn't seem to be much of a market these days."

"Nobles. Former businessmen. There is always a market."

"Ah. I'm a bit into gems myself, but I don't really have enough money to buy any."

"Just like to look?" the mouse said, taking out a metal briefcase. She undid a set of complicated locks and opened it up. Inside were a series of brilliant gems of almost every color in a multitude of different designs. The way she was presenting, however, took much of the attention away from the gems. The echidna recognized the ruse well, and judged her to be a skilled amateur.

"Holding a gem's also nice." He commented, keeping his eyes intently on her briefcase. To the mouse's credit she kept a straight face, and didn't say anything more along the line. "Do you have any emeralds? Those are my favorite."

"No, I have been having problems finding any." Well, it had been worth a try.

"Well, I probably need to be going." The echidna said, standing up from the bench. He began to walk away, but something made him stop. "Is that singing?" The mouse packed up the briefcase and put it back besides her.

"Probably some stupid parade. The local Enforcers will shut them up." She said.

"There aren't any around." The echidna said. "That's why I came here."

"Oh, bother." The mouse said, tightening her coat and walking away. The echidna widened his eyes as he saw one of the singers marching forward.

OOOOOOOOOO

Knuckles made his best effort to join in the song, even though the entire thing was an incomprehensible mess. As they finally reached Deppen he prepared to call a break. After five days of the most hurried marching even he had ever seen, they were all thoroughly ready to take a break, but they would still need to clear the town of cop-bots. Knuckles barely noticed the echidna talking to the mouse until he stood up and yelled out.

"Cal." Knuckles instantly recognized the voice and stopped in his tracks, the kid behind him bumped into him and pushed him forward, and the rest of the freedom fighters slowed to a halt. The old echidna walked over and spread out his arms. "Fancy seeing you here." Knuckles simply looked him in this face, showing something akin to fear.

"Grandpa, what are you doing in Thran?" Knuckles said hesitantly.

"Hunting a demon."

"oh feth." Knuckles mumbled, putting his hands over his head. He could hear the vacant stares of every single person behind him.

"What about you and your friends here?"

"What does it look like?" Knuckles yelled into his grandfather's face. The old echidna swung up and arm and hit his grandson across the face with two fingers. Knuckles yelped and stumbled back, clutching his hands to his face. The old echidna snorted.

"I was being serious, if you hadn't noticed. You, blue kid."

"Yeah?" Sonic asked.

"You're fighting the Robotnik?" the old echidna asked.

"Yep."

"Figures. Well I need to keep moving. Good luck kids." The older echidna waved and walked off into the distance before breaking into a run. Sonic turned back to face Knuckles.

"Weird grandpa?" He asked.

"Insane grandpa." Knuckles said, rubbing his cheek again.

"How insane?"

"Do you remember when you were talking about the… Chaos Emeralds?"

"Yeah?"

"He thinks he guards a giant one." Knuckles spat as he finished the sentence, and Sonic thought he saw blood. "Still pretty strong, though." He muttered to himself. Sonic rubbed his head for a few seconds before responding.

"The Master Emerald?" Knuckles stared before continuing.

"Let me guess, one of the Bard's stories."

"I think it was the one that let a castle float actually. There might have been something about a demon."

"There was." A girl in the crowd said.

"Thanks." Sonic called behind him. Knuckles just shook his head, trying to forget about the strange meeting.

"Come on, we need to secure the town."

OOOOOOOOOO

"Hello, Mr. Goering." Sleet said. "Yes, your uncle referred us to you. We're the folks he hired to help handle the… situation. You may have noticed the Enforcers in Deppen were all on stand-by, but there's a good reason for that. The rebels have already arrived, and we're just waiting for the right time to strike." Sleet nodded as he listened to what appeared to be a question. "Of course it'll work; we've got a ninja. Really." Sleet passed the radio to Espio, who grudgingly lifted it to his head.

"Hello… Yes… Tenth circle… Master Mil-Lah… yes." Espio mumbled, keeping his features straight. He handed the radio back to Sleet.

"So yeah, everything's under control." He said. "Just leave it to us."

OOOOOOOOOO

Tails waited outside the doors to the Northern throne room, rubbing his hands nervously. He didn't know why he was waiting here, and the only things he could hear were when people yelled intermittently.

"…losing…"

"…not…"

"…no one…

"…kid…"

"…only one…

"…insane…

"…point…"

"…nothing…"

"Shut up." The voice of the king was the last to reach Tails' ear. He couldn't make out what was said next, but whatever it was stopped the yelling. After a few minutes the door creaked opened up and a soldier stepped out.

"They're ready to see you." He said, and ushered Tails into the room. A table with a large number of older foxes was set before the throne so that the king was seated at it. Tails felt the intense stares of every single person in the room, and he fancied every person in the city, upon him.

"Tails," The king said hesitantly, enough to make the young fox realize the king probably didn't know his real name. "Do you know how the war is going?"

"No." Tails said, focusing on a lion stitched onto a tapestry behind and slightly to the right of the king.

"We are not losing," The king said, taking time to glare at one of the old foxes wearing a pair of glasses. "But we are not doing as well as we thought we would. Along with that fact, the Robotnik's begun blockading the water around the North." The king breathed in deeply. "_We_ cannot send a boat to pick up the Mobian rebels." Tails lowered his head. He had been cheerfully told that everything possible would be done, and then suggested to go back to work on the radio. The king gritted his teeth, ready to say something, but one of the old foxes interrupted him.

"We need you to go and tell them." Everyone else at the table gave him deathly glares. He mumbled something and lowered his head.

"Yes." King Robert said. "We really would rather send someone else, but you are currently the only person who has both the skills and the materials to reach Deppen."

"What do you mean?" Tails said.

"You have a working plane, and you know how to fly it. Sadly to admit, attempts to train flight-pilots of our own have not been going well." A fox with a distinctive scar across one cheek looked away at a suddenly fascinating candle holder. "Which means you might be the only person in the world currently capable of reaching them at this moment. We'll give you food, a map, and anything else you may need, but you don't have to do it. If you don't though, your friends won't be able to find out that we can't reach them. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Tails said. There was a tight stillness in the air before he said, "I'll do it."

OOOOOOOOOO

"I have to admit," Manic said, "The townsfolk are being pretty chill about all of this."

"From what I can tell." Sonia said, "They are really only under the Robotnik in name, like how Knothole was. Other than that they're independent."

"Huh. Well, nothing to do but wait for the boats to pick us up."

"Man, this is going to take forever." Sonic said. "At least when we're marching we're marching, but this is literally doing nothing. I mean, no one even followed us. It's like there's some new plan to bore us to death."

"He seems to be enjoying himself." Sonia, said pointing to where Big was fishing in the waters of the Channel besides Jet, a giant frog squatting on the cat's shoulder.

"He could enjoy himself in a blank room." Manic said. "I wonder how your… fiancé is doing."

"Yeah, I'd like to know more about that myself." Sonic said, casually running a hand over a fist. Sonia suppressed a blush and patted the ground irritably.

"We are not engaged." She said, glaring at her brothers.

"Hey, we're just concerned about the welfare of our possibly soon-to-be new brother-in-law." Manic said, making a face of innocence.

"Just shut up, you two." She said. "Or I'll start suggesting that you like Amy." Sonic's face showed complete and utter fear.

"You wouldn't." He said.

"That's just cruel." Manic said in mock horror.

Inside of the town Knuckles was busy talking to King Geoffrey. The king was constantly fidgeting or shivering, uneasy under the stare of an echidna that seemed to be constantly enraged, and constantly armed. Geoffrey felt certain that anyone else could have made the discussion seem reasonable.

"You wanted me to start another revolution?" He asked. He was still trying to comprehend how he was supposed to do that.

"Yes." Knuckles said. "Specifically shut down your computer, claim independence from the Robotnik, and disable all cop-bots in the area."

"How?" The skunk asked, a question he had yet to have answered.

"North was able to reverse engineer the war robot's weapons. I had figured you'd be at least trying to find something."

"I didn't have time." Geoffrey said. The conversation dove off into an argument on the two's abilities, heedless to the wanderer cautiously exiting a house nearby the three. It was a wolf, appearing to be in his mid thirties, dressed in a business suit that seemed to have seen far too much travel.

"Hey, rebels." He said hesitantly.

"What?" Sonic said, standing up to walk over to him.

"I wanted to be a bit discreet about my situation, but I need a ride home really bad."

"Really?" Sonic said, already disinterested.

"Yeah. I know it's a lot to ask, but I think I can make up for it." Sonic waited a few seconds before answering.

"How so?" He asked.

"Do you know the tunnel that's supposed to run beneath the Channel?" By now much of the freedom fighters were becoming attracted to the conversation, and watched it with interest. Jet was among them, and was highly disturbed when Big tapped him on the shoulder.

"Not now." Jet said, waving him off. Big stroked his frog nervously.

"Well, I found it." The wolf said.

"Right." Sonic said. "And where did it turn out to be?" Jet found Big tapping him on the shoulder again.

"No. I'm trying to listen." He said.

"It was buried, under a hill," The wolf said. Big tapped on Jet's shoulder even harder.

"Stop it." Jet whispered as harshly as possible.

"-outside Sanguinaire-" The wolf kept talking, but Big couldn't contain his nervousness. Everything that was happening felt wrong, especially that

"There's a knife floating on the roof!" He yelled out. Everyone turned to stare at him, and Sonic felt something knick the back of his head spikes. There was a disturbing stillness as he turned to look at where sharpened razor disk had cut into the ground, caught on one of its spikes.

"I'm gonna' die!" The wolf yelled hysterically, running back into the house. Then the shooting started.

OOOOOOOOOO

Edward muttered to himself as he forced past the last of the fail-safe programs his Uncle had placed on Deppen's Enforcers, directing them to start attacking the rebels.

"Those idiots. They just had to mess everything up." A single set had managed to remove itself from a building and had opened fire on the assembled rebels, hitting a few before the rebels could disperse. So far the scans showed them to only be wounded, but they could be dealt with later. For now the three leaders were the highest priority, and he directed the robots as such. He couldn't end this swiftly, but he _would_ be the one to finish it.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonic jumped back to grab his rifle and opened fire on a set of cop-bots coming from the back of the village limits, keeping them away from Jet and Big.

"Get Big to cover" he yelled as he finished off the last one."

"Gladly." Jet yelled, grabbing the giant cat's hand and leading him away. Sonic hugged the corner of the first house, poking his head around to see Sonia already at the next house, firing at another squad of robots. He ran around the other side of the house to reach her and nodded as she turned around to see him.

"We should have searched the houses." She said.

"Shoulda' known it wouldn't get easy." Sonic said in reply. They dashed to opposite corners of the house and opened fire on the cop-bots filling the town.

_Fear, anger, sorrow, flames._

_Death beside me, Death before me._

Espio chose to remove himself from the fight as the Enforcers began to open fire. He had failed his first kill, plain and simple. He should have realized that the wolf's plan was too extravagant, and should have opted for a simple kill while they slept. A whistle of air barely let Espio dodge as a green hedgehog rammed the butt of a gun at him. Years of training instantly focused Espio's mind, letting him grab the gun and force its barrel back into the hedgehogs face. The smaller creature took the blow well, turning his head to deflect it, but Espio quickly reversed the gun and slammed the back into the hedgehog's stomach, laying him flat with a final blow to the face. The chameleon let momentum carry the gun away and began his run away from the village. It was only then that he realized who the hedgehog had been, but a distinctive cracking sound told him that the rebel had retrieved his gun and opened fire. Espio jumped down into the grass, shifting his emotions to blend in. He would have to try another day.

_Doom, pain, destruction, terror._

_Death beside me, Death before me._

"Why did we ever get caught up in this?" Antoine yelled as he and Bartleby ducked under one of the hut's window.

"I believe it was the sudden appearance of several hundred forceful personalities armed with machine guns." Bartleby replied.

"In another way, it was destiny-" Someone else began, but was quickly cut off by Antoine. Another round of bullet fire came through the window, causing the two to cringe again. The door swung in and Amy ran in at the head of a small group of the rebels. She quickly fired a round of bullets through the window, before ducking and turning to face Antoine and Bartleby.

"The cop-bots are moving in closer. We need to get you two out of here." She said. The two nobles were pulled up and kept in the middle of the group as it made its way to the back of the hut. They filed through a rear door, and ducked to avoid the gaze of a squad of cop-bots that was waiting for them. It seemed to work long enough for them to reach the back of an actual brick house, which the pink hedgehog pushed the two nobles into unceremoniously.

"Scrat, you can use the second level to shoot from. Try to keep the machines off of us." A weasel nodded his head and followed Antoine and Bartleby into the house, quickly heading to the stairs.

_Thunder, rain, and lightning._

_Death beside me, Death before me._

Knuckles kicked down the door and dove into the house, quickly sweeping for any sign of robots. The squad of kids with him filed in behind, and performed quick searches of their own. All they found was a giant, orange-furred anthro non-chalantly leaning against a wall, talking into a radio, seemingly oblivious to the mayhem around him.

"You sure?" He was saying as Knuckles came in. He gave a partial glance to the intruders, but simply kept talking. "Well, what if some of the rebels find me? Okay." The orange anthro put the radio away, finally turning to look at the Knuckles and the machine gun he was holding. Knuckles almost thought the indistinct anthro was suspicious, if he didn't look too stupid to lie about stealing cookies.

"Who are you?" Knuckles said.

"Oh, I'm Sleet's partner." The orange one answered.

"Sleet?"

"The archeologist guy?" The anthro said hopefully. Knuckles narrowed his eyes, looking at the shotgun tied to the anthro's back.

"You don't look like an archeologist." He said. The orange furred anthro shrugged.

"Body guard, heavy lifter… don't you guys have a battle going on?" he said. Knuckles nodded.

"You two, stay here." He barked, pointing at two of his kids and then pointing down. "Everyone else with me." The freedom fighters turned and began to fire at the machines still hunting for them outside.

_Twilight, star-bright, master, cage_

_Death beside me, Death before me._

Sonic roared as he let loose a flurry of bullets into the robots before him. He and Sonia had pushed forward relentlessly, driving back the machines until they reached the center of town. The freedom fighters were finally gaining some semblance of control in the battle, and had taken most of the northern half of the town by now. On the far side of an ancient fountain the remaining cop-bots mindlessly arranged themselves, continuously firing at the children that attacked them. Sonia pushed her brother flat against the wall right before a bullet streaked path.

"Calm down." She hissed. "What is your problem?"

"This entire war!" Sonic yelled. "I'm sick of all of this."

_Blood for blood, skulls for a throne._

_Death to guide me, Death to lead me!_

The fountain's top exploded.

The ceramic shards rained down around it but the water stayed, swimming above it as if in a clear bowl. The water grew into a giant orb, balanced on the midsection of the fountain. The orb split at the bottom, a separate line of air going up halfway, the bottom tendrils fattening on the bottom and thinning on the top. Two tendrils of water pushed out to the side from the side, leaving the central globe thinner. The tendrils waved and split at the ends, forming what clearly looked like deformed hands. A second globe rose out of the center, and grew three back spikes of water as it stretched out to form a head of sorts. Then two yellow eyes grew inside of the watery head, stretching wide and shaking.

The demon threw back its head and screamed.


	23. Act 4 Chaos Daemon: Chapter 22

**Act 4: Chaos Daemon**

Chapter 22

The scream was unearthly, like a waterfall pouring down in full fury. The sound undulated as the demon waved back and forth, seemingly oblivious to reality.

A unit of cop-bots stepped forward and fired a single round. The demon's scream stopped and it rocked back as each bullet hit. The fire stopped, and the watery monster straightened itself, seemingly flowing to that shape instead of moving its body. The shaking eyes stilled.

Suddenly one of the demon's arms stretched forward and impaled one of the firing cop-bots straight through the core. The arm retracted as quickly as it had gone forward and the demon twisted around on one foot, quickly throwing out its impossibly long arms to destroy the rest of the offending cop-bots. After the last fell the monster stilled, balanced on one foot and arms held up on each side. What sounded like alien words gurgled out of it and it raised its arms to the air. It jumped down from the fountain, and charged the nearest thing, another unit of cop-bots.

OOOOOOOOOO

"That means 'burn', right?" Knuckles yelled out. The demon was tearing apart cop-bots like paper dolls, and the echidna didn't know if it would turn on the freedom fighters.

"Yeah." Dalin yelled from the back of the group.

"This is too close to be a coincidence." Knuckles murmured, rubbing his forehead.

"What is?" Manic said, crawling up to meet Knuckles' unit.

"That _thing_ said-" Knuckles said something harsh and halting that left the green hedgehog utterly confused.

"In English please?"

"It said 'death to the strong arm and let Feth burn'."

"Feth? That can't be grammatically-"

"Feth's an echidna tree god." Dalin said with irritation.

"Really?" Manic asked.

"Yes." Knuckles said. "And we were trying to figure out why _it_ was speaking Echidna."

"Maybe it's one of you guys' demons." Manic said, adding a half-hearted laugh to the end.

"I was trying to avoid the sillier options." Knuckles said. He turned and watched the water monster throw a cop-bot under and then stab it repeatedly with suddenly elongated legs, the body seeming to hang in the air. He didn't add that he was thinking about what his grand-father had said only a few hours ago.

_Hunting a demon._

OOOOOOOOOO

"Four left." Scrat mumbled as he watched the demon. "Pretty soon we'll see if it likes us."

"It only hates." Somebody said. Scrat turned to see an echidna girl behind him, staring sadly out the window. Her eyes suddenly widened and she screamed. "Get down." The weasel dropped his body instinctively, and watched in shock as a spike of water shot in through the window. When he turned to thank the girl, he found she was already gone. She couldn't possibly have left the room that fast. "Mad Larkin." He said after a few seconds of pondering the incident, deciding whether or not to tell. "I can see it now."

OOOOOOOOOO

The last machine was destroyed with both of the demon's arms neatly punching through both its head and its core. As it finished it let the arms retract into their "normal" state, and the monster turned to face the freedom fighters.

"Come on." Knuckles growled and started leading the kids away. "We need to reach the bags."

"Why?" Manic asked, hurrying to catch up.

"The dumbest hope I've ever depended upon." There was a crashing as they heard building behind them start to be torn apart. "GO!" Knuckles roared, pushing the kids into a run. A tentacle of water went up and slammed one of the kids against a wall, making the remainder run faster. The demon leapt up and landed in front of Manic, forcing him to stop as it turned to face him. Manic yelped and fired wildly at the hissing mass of water, stopping it momentarily as a few bullets hit, stretching and distorting but leaving no mark. The demon hissed louder, and Manic turned and ran as the demon restored its shape.

Knuckles cursed as he saw the monster give chase. He was going to need one of the three, and now he wasn't sure he would find one.

Manic twisted around the corner of the house as he met the alley's end, watching as the demon ran past too quickly to stop itself. It seemed to stumble and flip head over heels, but hands became feet, feet became hands, and the head flowed to the new top of the monster's body. Manic ducked as one of the arms stretched out to hit him, feeling the sting as stone behind him shattered and flew into the back of his head. He pushed the pain away and ran, but the monster charged into the house in front of him, pushing off to turn and face him again. Manic was beginning to consider what was best to pray to when tracer fire lit up the demons body from behind. It turned and swung a long tentacle of water behind it, leaving a line of destruction in the buildings behind it and going over Sonic's and Sonia's heads.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Dingo, we need to get out of here now." Sleet said into the radio.

"What about the demon?" Dingo replied from the other end.

"Go around it. Just get out of there." Sleet said and turned off the radio. He trudged towards the back of the hut he had taken shelter in, rubbing his forehead. The ninja had missed, the robots jumped the gun, and then a fething _demon_ appeared in the middle of the town. The wolf could feel his calmness being devoured by his anger at all the idiots he had to work with. He had a plan and they had _all_ messed it up.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Missed." Sonic yelled as the demon ran headlong into an alley, failing to hit Sonic by centimeters. Sonic heard a crash and ran from the house behind him, not waiting long enough to see the demon burst out of it. Manic and Sonia fired on it, confusing it long enough to give Sonic a head start. By now, however, its focus seemed to be purely on the blue hedgehog brave enough to taunt it. Sonic ran down an alley way as he heard the demon give chase. He wasn't sure how they would stop it, but they were at least buying time for everyone else in the town. Sonic heard a tracer fire and the monster stop, and before he could react a hand grabbed him and pulled him behind a building. It was Knuckles, gun slung on his back and oddly enough, holding a large, glowing ring in his hand. He pushed the ring into Sonic's gloved hands and waited.

Sonic looked at it oddly and before Knuckles had time to explain the demon was back, tearing out the corner of the house and swinging at the two. Sonic held the ring tight as he ducked the monstrous arms, fumbling with his gun to fire it. Finally he shoved the ring between his teeth so he could use both hands, but then there came the glow.

The demon froze, a hiss trailing into silence.

Sonic looked down. His gem had come out from under his shirt and was glowing, glowing blue and swinging wildly without reason.

He felt a new strength flow through him, a feeling of joy he hadn't felt in… weeks? Months? Ever since the war started. His mind seemed to fly through the cosmos faster than possible, reaching the farthest star.

OOOOOOOOOO

"FETH!" Knuckles yelled as he ran from the demon. Sonic had glowed and then disappeared in a sudden gust of wind. What sort of weapon was that? He turned and sidestepped as the demon lunged at him. He swore as he fired to stun it.

OOOOOOOOOO

The old echidna called Athair had slowed his run to a walk. His mind was still confused from the encounter with his grandson. They had both been agitated, and he hadn't been able to figure out why. He was usually more in control of himself than that. He could feel the demon close by, but the anger clouded his mind and hid the direction. That and he felt a smaller glow of the same power… and it was coming towards him. He turned to face it, but was only met by a roaring wind with a blue tint. His face was whipped around, and he saw an explosion of dirt and dust behind him. The wind stopped and a figure came running out of the explosion back towards Athair. It passed in seconds, but it was enough to make clear what the wind had been: of all things, a hedgehog running faster than earthly possible.

Athair continued on his way.

OOOOOOOOOO

The demon was close, swinging blow after blow at Knuckles, giving him barely a chance to dodge each time, backing him closer and closer into a wall. Shots rang out, and the demon turned and stretched out its arms to impale Manic and Sonia, who were firing from the other side of the town center. It started to charge towards them, but before it could pass the fountain a blue flash of light cut through it from the side.

Two halves of a demon wobbled and started to collapse, but they pulled up and flowed back together to reform it. It had barely turned to where the flash had gone when it came from behind and cut through it again.

The demon barely twitched up when the flash cut through again. The blue flash attacked the demon time after time, faster and faster, the circle it weaved becoming clearer and closer until the light simply danced back and forth over the puddle that was left of the demon, moving so fast that it seemed to be a constant circle.

The light finally stopped to show Sonic bathed in a blue glow and standing in triumph over the demon's remains as they soaked into the ground.

"The hell?" Manic muttered. The clearest thing to him was how Sonic's gem was glowing brightly, the same as the day the three had first agreed upon being siblings. The glow around and on Sonic died down, and he collapsed to the ground.

"Oof." He muttered as his brother and sister came to help him up. "That was something."

OOOOOOOOOO

"Now, I think the obvious question is why 'why didn't we do that earlier?'" Sonic said. The freedom fighters were still regrouping from the strange battle, and their leaders had little time to figure out the miraculous intervention themselves. Knuckles bowed his head and shook it.

"Because I did not know that would happen." He said, carefully enunciating each word. They passed by where Shanks was handling the worst injuries while giving out instructions to other kids.

"But you knew it would do something." Manic said, filling his voice with suspicion. Knuckles rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"I was only seventeen when I joined the guard. They weren't going to tell me a lot." He said.

"So what did they tell you?" Sonia asked.

"Only to give a ring to one of the royalty in dire emergencies."

"And the Robotnik's take-over?" Sonic asked.

"One, we weren't able to reach the king in time. Second, the specific wording was 'when all forms of conventional weapons have no use.'" Knuckles responded. Manic winced. "And they told me the person had to have one of those gems. Beyond that, nothing."

Knuckles walked away from them and went to help organize the wounded while the three went to recuperate on their own.

"By the by." Manic said. "I think I saw who tried to kill Sonic, before the demon and all arrived."

"Really?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah. It was definitely an anthro, but beyond that I couldn't really make it out. Had a horn and a long tail of some sort, and I couldn't see any fur on it. Oh, and it was this yellow-brownish color. I got the drop on it but it gave me a nasty knock before running away." Manic carefully left out having shot at it, even though he had felt it was entirely reasonable. Sonia had begun to shiver. "What?"

"A ninja." She said simply.

"You're kidding." Sonic said.

"Not the ones of legend, but a ninja all the same."

"Any clue why it would attack Sonic?" Manic asked.

"Because it thinks he's a threat." Sonia said, looking at the ground.

"To what?"

"The world."

OOOOOOOOOO

"How many?" Knuckles asked Shanks, the rest of the question clear to both of them.

"Nineteen." Shanks said simply. There was a brief silence before he continued. "The wounded are mostly minor though. And I don't think the… thing got anyone." Knuckles nodded grimly. In the long run, the demon probably saved them, but still, nineteen… that made twenty-eight dead kids so far. And for this round they wouldn't have as long to get over the shock, because someone much better than a machine was hunting them, and the Edward kid who had taken over Thran knew where they were. But if they moved, they would miss the boats… He walked to the house where he had left the orange-furred giant, hoping to interrogate him about something, like if he knew about the trap, but when he reached the house he found bloodstains, and that led him to the dead bodies of the two kids he left behind. _Thirty_.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Dingo, you've got blood on you." Sleet said. The orange furred anthro looked at his hands like they were caked with mud. "I told you not to shoot anybody."

"I didn't." Dingo said. That was enough for Sleet to know what had happened. The chameleon was looking away in clear disdain.

"You do realize what this means, right?" Sleet said, turning on the radio and holding it up to his mouth. "I'm the only person here who did his job!" he yelled.

"Your scheme had obviously failed." Edward said defensively from the other end of the radio-link. Sleet had been quick to ask the Robotnik about what had happened with the cop-bots, and was furious about the answer. The worst part was that the Robotnik had decided that the kid made a decent decision.

"And I had a plan if the ninja missed." Sleet said. "I told you I had a plan. You went and messed everything up." Dingo took his eyes off his hands to raise an eyebrow at his partner. Sleet was usually the calm one of the pair. Then again, Dingo had hit those kids a few more time than necessary. Everyone seemed a bit more angry than usual.

"Yes, a demon suddenly appeared," Sleet was saying. "And if you hadn't had those bots shoot it might have killed the three for us. Now we don't even know whether it's still there or not." Sleet grunted and clicked the radio off. He stared at the chameleon. "Now you…"

"I had already thrown when the cat called out. The hedgehog's reflexes were faster than expected." Espio stayed where he was as he replied, not turning to face the bounty hunters. Mercenary brutes, both of them. One simply pretended to be sophisticated.

"Right." Sleet said, taking a deep breath. "We need to sleep. We need to eat. We need a new plan."


	24. Chapter 23

**Author Note: Back to school and back on schedule! And, hopefully, back to a moving plot!**

* * *

Chapter 23

"You know." Tails said. "I almost didn't put the second seat in." The Tornado was flying over the waters of the ocean, sweeping away from The Robotnik's airspace before returning over Thran. Tails took a glance back at the soldier in the backseat of the plane, a fox by the name of Slagar who had been sent to keep him safe. The soldier was chillingly silent, making Tails feel the need to start talking on his own.

After the first two aerial battles he had found himself in, he began to find flying boring unless there was harsh weather or machines shooting at him. He didn't really want to start a conversation, but anything was better than the low roar of the engine and the endless water underneath of him. His flying was guided solely by instructions of "Fly this long before turning", and the times given were very long.

"Why was that?" Slagar asked, keeping his gaze on a pocket watch in his hands.

"Well, I was only working off of pictures from a book, and had to improvise for a lot of it. I didn't think I would ever need to have a second chair, but eventually I figured I needed to keep as close to the pictures as possible, so I put it in anyways." Tails said.

"Fascinating." The other fox said, barely moving. "You're going to turn in five minutes."

"Right" Tails said.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Now, step one:" Sleet said to the assembled assassins. "Reconnaissance." It was the day after the failed ambush, and Sleet, Dingo, and Espio were all seated around the remains of last night's campfire. Sleet had lashed the radio to his shoulder so Edward could hear.

"Normally I'd have Dingo do this-" Espio cocked his head to the side and gave Sleet an odd look.

"He's smarter than he looks, and he looks really dumb" Sleet said, not bothering to properly explain. "But he already offed a few kids so they won't trust him. He said he was working with me, so I'll be suspicious-"

"I should go." Espio said.

"I'm sorry kid." Sleet said. "But you'll stick out like a sore thumb on a four finger amputee."

"Then I won't let them see me."

"Then how do you get them to talk."

"I am certain they will be just as confused about the attack as we are, and will still be discussing it amongst themselves."

"Fine. If you get caught try not to mention us."

"I won't." Espio said, and with that he stood up and walked away, his body shifting to match the grass around him.

OOOOOOOOOO

Once again Espio chose to climb up to the roof of one of the small huts that the locals used. He began to shift from his current jealous emotional state to his neutral calm state, and then back to a state of boredom.

_Nothing is happening._ He told himself.

He flattened himself on the tiles of the rooftops listening to the mindless chatter of the children below. Actually, they weren't much younger than him, only a few years at most.

_They're fighting at this young? This 'band' truly is made of monsters._ Espio reviewed what information Master Mil-Lah had collected before sending him out.

_They had posed as a modern music ensemble, playing among the lower class in the capital of Mobius and the Robotnik's empire. After inciting a riot that destroyed five of the Robotnik's machines they fled the city, taking with them roughly five hundred youths of varying ages. Outside of the city they met up with a mercenary they had hired, who supplied them with stolen weapons. Their origins and true plans are unknown, but it is clear that they plan to overthrow the Robotnik, which at this point in time would throw much of the Eiyou continent into economic chaos._

Espio had been sent by boat to arrive in Mobius as fast as possible, but when news transmissions from the Robotnik himself began to indicate that they had fled to Thran he paid the pilot to head to its northern shore and let him off. After that he had traveled along the coast on foot until he had met up with the pair of hunters and decided to follow them from there, knowing they could gather information far quicker than he could.

"Dude, I had this freaky dream last night." The voice belonged to one of the rebel leaders, the blue hedgehog named "Sonic". Espio listened in, staying disinterested so that his brown coloring wouldn't fade away. He missed out on the replies, but was able to hear Sonic as he went on to explain.

"Okay, so it starts off and there's fire everywhere, and I can't tell where I am. Then I see this echidna girl lying on the ground, and I go up to check her out- _I meant see what was wrong with her_- and all of a sudden she looks up and starts yelling about how she can't do anything. Then it ended."

Unless it actually did reveal something about Sonic's subconscious desires, Espio found the information to have been a total waste of his time. The three continued to chat about unimportant things, until suddenly they started talking about him.

"You know, those ninjas have got to be pretty dumb." It was Manic, the green hedgehog.

"And why do you say that?" And at last, Sonia was speaking.

"Well, they're going into this big hissy fit about how dangerous we are, according to you, but they were just sitting on their hands when a guy overthrows one of the longest established kingdoms in the entire world and replaces the entire government with: One, himself and; Two, a bunch of robots. I think that would sound just a little unbalancing."

Espio clenched a fist. How dare he insult his order's record? On the other hand, he was struck by the thought that he couldn't think of why the ninjas hadn't acted in that situation either.

What was done was what was done, however, and now they had to deal with the consequences.

"By the way," Sonic said. "Did I actually fight a water monster yesterday or was I just hallucinating?"

"Thanks a lot. _I_ was counting on it being a hallucination." Manic said.

"Look," Sonia said. "There are all kinds of weird things that live in the wild and we don't know all of them."

"How many of them can speak echidna?" Manic asked.

"It could be like a parrot, okay? I'm just saying that it could have been nothing more than some kind of giant amoeba that happened to wander in. Whatever it was, it's dead, so there's no point in worrying." Sonia said.

Espio nodded. They had figured out a way to kill it. That would be important to tell the hunters. The bullets from the Robotnik's machines hadn't left any sign of harm, but obviously it was within their power to defeat the demon. Espio quickly filed that memory to the back of his mind. If he was not disinterested, then he would reveal himself.

The conversation between the three ringleaders soon veered to unimportant topics, and Espio found himself genuinely bored. _Children._ He thought. _Children playing at being soldiers._ According to their files though, they were only a few years younger than him. In any case, it was the experience that mattered. Espio crept away, back to the camp to report what he found.

OOOOOOOOOO

Athair sat cross-legged in a rock field, calming himself so he could search for the demon. Reaching his sense back to where he came from he saw a glimmer, no, several pinpricks of light together. He circled his senses around and around the village, spreading out to sense where the demon was. Then there it was, the shining light of energy that he was hunting. It was heading away from the village. Why? Then he reached farther, searching for one of the servers, and found it. A light traveling over the Channel, its path set to cross with the demon's.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Prepare to land." Slagar said. For the first time that day Tails could see land below him. He nodded and started searching for a flat piece of land. It would have been easier to land in a city, but the soldier had specifically told him that it was a bad idea. Finding an almost suitable stretch of grass Tails brought the plane down. As soon as the wheels touched the grass the two foxes were shaken about as Tails brought the plane to a stop.

"Done." Tails said as he turned off the plane.

"Good." Slagar replied. "Deppen is due east of here. Stay here and watch the plane, take off if anything you don't recognize approaches you. I'll deliver the news." Slagar climbed out and began walking, while Tails went to work making sure his beloved Tornado was in prime condition after the rough landing.

Slagar didn't give the puddle of water a second of notice as he stepped into it, but as he tried to lift his foot it became stuck. Grimacing, the soldier leaned down to investigate, but found himself unable to find anything unusual. He twisted around as he heard the liquid moving behind him, and narrowed his eyes at the sight of an anthro like figure assembling itself from the water, with glowing green eyes.

"Run, kid." Slagar yelled to Tails. The younger fox turned and widened his eyes at the monster. He was frozen in place as an arm made of water swatted Slagar away, and the second arm pointed at him. Suddenly the arm stretched out and Tails threw himself out of the way. The arm impaled the Tornado on one of its sides and out the other, then slowly retracted, taking Tails' backup power source with it: A large, green emerald.

OOOOOOOOOO

_Death. Pain. Suffering. Misery._

OOOOOOOOOO

Sleet and Dingo looked up as they heard the crying echo across the plain. It was a different sound this time, but the both recognized the source of it.

"The demon." They said in unison. Both grabbed their guns and started prepping them, keeping their eyes in the direction of the crying.

Espio heard the weeping as he darted across the plain. If what the rebels had said about killing the demon was true, then this meant there were two of them.

The cries traveled farther on, the faintest whisper of them coming to Deppen.

"What is that?" Dalin asked no one in particular. He looked behind him, and still found no source for the crying. The worst thing was how much it sounded like the demon's scream. Dalin ran to tell Knuckles what had happened.

Athair heard the crying as he ran, and it only confirmed what he knew was up ahead. His path was fixed, and he barely noticed as he collided with the mouse-women from Deppen, knocking her down. He simply righted himself and kept running, ignoring her curses.

OOOOOOOOOO

The demon's right arm had changed, bulging as a skeletal arm formed inside of it, the emerald from Tail's plane imbedded in the skeleton hand. Slagar winced as reached for the sidearm under his uniform. The monster must have broken a few ribs when it hit him. He took careful aim for the arm. If it had come for the gem, he reasoned, and the gem made it grow, then removing the gem would weaken it. The gun was a pistol pattern Robot Destroyer, specifically reverse engineered from the Robotnik's weapons to destroy his machines. Slagar felt confident that it could handle a single gem.

_ Boom_

Slagar saw the shot stop as it hit the edge of the monster's hand. The creature looked down before the oversized bullet exploded, tearing the creatures arm apart and sending the rest of it collapsing on the ground in a puddle of water. Slagar turned to see if Tails was alright when a pillar of water shot out of the ground and sent him flying back again. He twisted his head to see the monster standing over him, letting out a soft sobbing. The right arm and the emerald looked entirely untouched. The right arm rose to finish him off, but the creature was cut off by a hail of bullets slamming into its head. The creature looked up and hissed with the same tone of sorrow.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonia panted as she ran to keep up with the rest of the group. When Knuckles had heard the crying he had said it belonged to one of the monsters like the one that had attacked the village. They had to see whether or not it really was a monster, and so he chose to take the three with him in case they needed to destroy it. As they crested a grassy hill they finally found the source.

The monster was similar in substance to the last one, but its right arm was much larger than the left, and had some kind of skeleton in it. Stranger still, though, was that it was threatening a fox in the gear of a Northern soldier on the ground, while Tails' plane sat behind it. Right before the monster could bring down its arm Knuckles swung up his rifle and opened fire, hitting it square in the head. The monster looked up at them and hissed loudly, starting to dash towards them. Before Knuckles could even grab one of the ring cases he had brought the soldier twisted around and opened fire on it with an over-sized pistol. The bullets punched into the creature, causing it to still its advance up the hill. Then the bullets exploded, tearing the demon apart and causing it to fall on the ground in a puddle of liquid.

The soldier struggled to his feet and began signaling frantically as the freedom fighters started to walk closer.

"It's not dead." The fox yelled. The ground exploded behind the soldier as a fountain of water shot out, taking the shape of the monster. With one blow of its giant hand it smashed the solider into the ground. It let out another disturbing wail as it once again began to climb the hill towards the Mobians.

OOOOOOOOOO

"If we're lucky this'll finish them off for us." Sleet said. He and Dingo were crouched behind a knoll, observing the fight from a distance.

"They claim to have killed the demon from the village." A voice said. Sleet looked over to see a green patch of grass in the shape of a chameleon crawling towards them.

"They did?" Dingo asked.

"At the very least, they believe they did."

"How-" Before Sleet could say anything more something ran up and vaulted over them. All the three hunters could make out was a flash of red hair before it was gone.

OOOOOOOOOO

Knuckles had already tossed one of the boxes to Sonic when a red figure collided with the monster, smashing it into a puddle of water on the ground. As it slowed down it became clear as an old echidna, jumping far too agilely for his age. With a quick twist of his body the echidna dodged the monsters huge right arm as it punched out from the ground, and then the echidna ducked in to punch the monster's reforming head, shattering it once again. Manic leaned forward from the group of freedom fighters to get a clearer look.

"Isn't that your grandpa?" He asked.

"Yes." Knuckles said quietly, too shocked to move.

* * *

**Fun Fact: There is a genus of giant amoebas named _Chaos_, and a particular species with the scientific name _Chaos Chaos_.**


	25. Chapter 24

**Author Note: And now, in a sudden and unexpected change of course, the plot moves _forward_. Also, if your reading this and like it, _please_ review to say why. If your reading this and want to barf, _please_ suppress your vomit for a minute or two so you can review and say why. Both would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy the story.**

* * *

Chapter 24

"We're moving slow. Deppen's is still a few days away and we're not even sure if it's the right place. By now those two could have already attacked them, and I doubt the Mobians could beat them."

OOOOOOOOOO

Athair ducked under the monster's larger arm and side stepped the real attack, a quick punch from the smaller arm. He drove his fist into the monster's head and jumped back as the monster collapsed into a puddle of water on the ground. The puddle tried to shift around him, but Athair tracked it closely. Thwarted in its attempt the monster rose up again, slowly this time. It swung its giant arm and the echidna easily stepped back. The demon jabbed forward with its smaller arm and Athair stepped to the side before bringing both his hands up in an uppercut that tore through the monster's head, leaving it to collapse on the ground. The puddle shifted slightly, but became still.

"Not bad for an old guy." Sonic said as he walked up. Athair put his hand on his back and stretched, making a distinctive cracking sound.

"I'm not as good as I used to be." He muttered.

"So what was that?" Sonic asked. Athair turned around as the rest of the freedom fighters started walking up, his grandson staying in the back.

"That," Athair began, waving at the puddle on the ground. "Was Chaos, an impossibly dangerous being beyond mortal ken." Athair started fishing through his pockets, looking for something. "It is enough for now to know that the creature shall shortly be dealt with, and you won't have to bother with anymore crazy fools talking about guarding dangerous artifacts." Knuckles stuttered his first few words.

"You talked about it being used as a battery." Knuckles said. It was the first time Sonic could really call him nervous.

"That one was only partly true, I'll admit." Athair replied calmly, still rifling through his pockets. "It is also my duty to prevent the release of the demon inside of it."

"Is there only one?" Sonia asked.

"As far as I know." Athair replied. The movements of his hands were becoming more and more frantic. Sonic frowned at the reply. The puddle of water in front of them might be the same monster from Deppen, and if it didn't die then…

"Are you looking for something?" Manic asked. Athair grunted and pulled out a card decorated in wild colors.

"No-" Whatever Athair was trying to say was cut short as the monster's fist rose from the pool of water and caught Athair in the back. The old echidna let out a single gasp of breath, as the demon called Chaos stood over him, seeming to shed tears on his body. The rest of the monster trickled back down on the ground, but this time it sank into the earth and away from sight.

"Everyone fan out. Sonic, get ready to use a ring." Knuckles started yelling.

"It's… gone…" Athair whispered. Knuckles knelt down besides his grandfather and tried to keep him calm as the freedom fighters waited for Chaos's next attack.

"Don't try to talk." Knuckles said. "You've been hit in the-"

"I know where I was hit." Athiar said grinning. "Try not to let the kid see my body." Athair's head tilted toward Tails' plane.

"Someone check the plane." Knuckles shouted. He turned back to his grandfather but the older echidna stopped him from talking with a shake of his head.

"Take my hand and listen to what I say." Athair whispered. Knuckles grabbed his hand and lifted it gently.

Green lightning raced along the interlinked arms and jolted Knuckles. Athair's arm tightened and jerked his grandson to his face. Athair's next words were sharp and strong, each one spoken with as much strength as the dying echidna could muster.

"The mouse with the jewelry case has the Master. It's the only thing that can hold Chaos. The girl will tell you anything else."

"What girl?" Knuckles said. Athair's grip slackened and his arm fell to the ground.

"Tikal." Athair said, and with that his eyes closed. His chest rose with one last breath and then fell. "time to sleep." He muttered.

OOOOOOOOOO

By no stretch of the imagination could the weather be called cold, or even slightly chilly, but all the same Tails was wrapped up in the thickest quilt the women of Deppen could find. Even with that and the mug of hot tea clenched in his hands he still felt chills all over him.

While they seemed to put up fine with armed occupations, the sight of a dead-eyed fox kid being supported between two hedgehogs moved the natives to fierce action, dragging him away from the "stupid kids" and doing their best to make sure he didn't catch anything, without even the slightest idea of what happened. Tails hadn't volunteered anything while being shuffled between them, and they hadn't bothered to ask him. Tails's ears twitched as they heard someone talking at the door to the house, and then trepid footsteps down the hall. A furless muzzle poked through the doorway to the kitchen, and then the rest of Sonic followed through a second later.

"Hey." He said, coming in and pulling up a chair. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm fine." Tails mumbled. The look Sonic gave him showed how much he did not believe what the young fox had just said. Their eyes trailed to the ground and looked away from each other.

"The soldier that was with you died." Sonic said. Everyone else had tried their best to concoct some story which wouldn't hurt Tails's young mind, but Sonic decided that the truth was the best choice. Tails closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. "It's not your fault." Sonic said to cut off whatever Tails was going to say. "Nobody could have stopped it. Not even me." Tails looked at him oddly. "Not yet."

OOOOOOOOOO

"If you can't see anything then I won't either." Shanks said, ignoring Knuckles's bared arm to check a kids bandages.

"It was lightning-" Knuckles began to reply before Shanks cut him off again.

"Which would leave: burn marks and scars, which there are none; damage your nervous system, which I wouldn't be able to find; or stopped your heart, in which case you'd be dead."

"I felt it." Knuckles said desperately.

"But no one else can verify that this happened?"

"…No."

"Then there is nothing I can do about it. Have you felt anything since then?" Knuckles flexed his exposed arm.

"Nothing." Knuckles left the house Shanks claimed as a field hospital and made his way to a spot in the village where no one could disturb him. _Everything_ felt different. His eyes were disturbed by odd colors that tainted everything, he felt the most annoying itch, and as much as he knew he was tired he did not feel it.

OOOOOOOOOO

"It didn't seem to care about us." Tails said. "It just swatted Slagar away and put its arm through the Tornado-"

"Tornado?" Sonic asked. Questions helped to break the mood.

"My plane. The army's working on their own, but they didn't have any yet. The monster just punched, threw," Tails spread his arms wide to properly express what had happened. "Stretched his arms really long and it went through the Tornado, and it took the backup source."

"That's the emerald, right?" Sonic said with trepidation.

"As far as I know. The other scientists-" Sonic waved his hands in front of Tails's face to quiet him.

"What happened after the monster took the emerald."

"He… changed." Sonic slumped back. It was exactly as he feared.

OOOOOOOOOO

Chaos… Chaos… The beast was dangerous, that much Knuckles was certain of. War or not something like that could not be left to its own devices, but _what could they do?_ Even a weapon supposedly able to stop the unstoppable proved to have been worthless. His grandfather was the only person who seemed to know anything about it, and he was dead, having left only a few cryptic words to go on. Actually, a mouse with a jewelry case wasn't that cryptic, but he didn't even know how to find her or what he was supposed to look for. The "Master Emerald"? That was supposed to be bigger than he was. The stolen object obviously could fit in a pocket. And who the hell was this girl who was supposed to tell him everything? _And why did the monster cry?_

"It was a Chaos Emerald." Knuckles opened his eyes to find Sonic talking to him.

"What do you mean?" Knuckles asked, not in the mood for anymore strangeness.

"Tails's plane was running on a Chaos Emerald and this monster that _just so happens_ to be called Chaos stole it and somehow made its entire self bigger by absorbing an emerald about yay big." Sonic said, clenching his fist to display the emerald's size.

"I highly doubt Tails could run his plane using-"

"It wasn't the first machine." Sonic said, catching Knuckles attention. "He said he used it with plenty of machines before that and carefully tested the way some _only_ worked if the emerald was attached. This kid is not dumb."

Knuckles bowed his head.

"We need to tell everyone this." He said.

"Everyone?"

"Everyone who might know something."

OOOOOOOOOO

"Chaos… Emeralds." King Geoffrey said slowly. "You're joking, right?" Knuckles slumped. It was hard communicating seriousness to someone with more authority than him. He pointed towards where Jet was raising his hand.

"Why are me and Big here?" he asked. The aforementioned cat was slumped back in his chair, slowly stroking his pet frog and quite literally looking down on the rest of the assembly.

"Because I thought people from Neworld might have heard different stories." Knuckles said.

"Unless you believe in walking battleships I can't help you." Knuckles let his head fall into his hands.

"This is serious. You _all_ saw that monster, and a kid who seems to be a good deal smarter than most of you here says he saw it take an emerald and suddenly change very rapidly. All I want to know is if anyone knows anything about any kind of even slightly unusual emerald, which might or might not be magical." Knuckles looked around at the people he assembled: the king of Thran, all of the different people from Neworld, the three, that kid who wanted to be a Speaker… finally King Geoffrey spoke.

"The royal family of Thran does happen to own a blue emerald." This time it was Knuckles turn to not believe him. "It has been tested quite recently, and it is very definitely an emerald that just so happens to be blue. It is considered a natural mystery."

"What does it look like?" Knuckles asked.

"Blue obviously; Starburst cut, which is very unusual for an emerald; and about yay… big." The king said, clenching his fist to display size. In that moment he began to remember more of what he had learned about the Bard's works as a young prince, and how unusual the Chaos Emeralds were described to be.

"Where is it?" Knuckles asked.

"Well usually it would be stored with the crown jewels in the palace…"

"Where is it _now_?"

"It was moved to keep it safe when the Robotnik invaded, along with the scepter it was affixed to."

"Where?"

"Armenz, east of here."

OOOOOOOOOO

"Chaos… Emeralds." Edward Gareth Goering said slowly. "You're joking, right?" His hands began the working off peeling another soft-boiled egg for his stomach.

"I am simply informing you of what the rebels are basing their actions off of." Espio said from the other end of the radio.

"Are they joking?"

"Apparently not. Even then, if their information about Chaos-"

"Chaos?"

"I apologize. Chaos is the name they have begun to refer to the monster by. I believe it is linked to their belief about the Chaos Emeralds involvement."

"Their insane." Edward said before popping the egg into his mouth.

"Most likely. However, my associates and I all saw the altered beast, and can verify that it was both significantly different and similar to the one that appeared at Deppen. No matter what happens, it is clear that this beast is a great threat to everyone and should be treated seriously."

"I will." Edward said around the egg-meat. With a click he turned off the radio and stood up. With a snap of his fingers the two Enforcers at his side turned to follow him down to the loading bay. When they reached it Edward rubbed his hands greedily at the set of crates recently shipped over from Mobius to his current residence of Thran's palace. He grabbed the one on top first, a thick metal case no bigger than a shoe box. Quickly unlatching the top he took out the note on top and skimmed through it:

_Edward,_

_ Enclosed in this box is a gemstone with several highly abnormal electro-magnetic properties. Given your current position of leading the efforts against the "Mobian" anarchists, I have decided that this trinket may prove to be highly useful to your efforts. Some of its properties are…_

Edward glanced down into the box. Inside was a fist-sized red jewel, shaped in a starburst cut. Something inside of Edward made him think it was an emerald.


	26. Chapter 25

**Author Note: Another update! Yay! and I feel _good _about this chapter. The problem with this one is that I got hit by nasty writer's lock early on that, coupled with having less time to work on it, made this chapter take far too long. In other news I will be shortly re-editing chapters to change my OC Scrat Larkin from being a weasel-like hedgehog to just a weasel. _I assure you there is good reason._ For those who actually care about my special-geographical relationships, the weasels are Irish. **

**As always, I entreat you to take a few minutes and review this work after reading it.  
**

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Chapter 25

"Do you mean to tell me that the Mobian government has been in possession of highly powerful mythological artifacts and has never decided to tell anyone?" Edward Gareth Goering demanded.

"Secrecy is one of the greatest defenses. If anyone was able to manipulate a Chaos Emerald to the degree found in myths, the entire world would be threatened." The Robotnik replied from the communicator's screen. "For a long time they kept the existence hidden from anyone who wasn't directly involved with the royal family. The first real scientist allowed to study them was my grandfather, and even then he was only allowed secondhand observations of their affects."

"And what do you think about them?" Edward said, slamming meaty hands onto the control panel in front of the screen.

"Powerful; impossibly so. They gather loose electrons from the surrounding environment, allowing them a near infinite electrical charge. They also can pass this charge onto certain types of metal, causing the charged metal to glow. Attempts to make use of the metal's charge, however, degrades it at a rate of-"

"Could they make something grow?" Edward asked. Even as thoughts of _infinite energy_ danced in the back of his mind, he was still preoccupied with a… growing emergency.

"What?"

"Grow. Take an emerald and grow bigger."

"If said object could reform the energy back into matter and rearrange the sub-sub-atomic particles in such a way as to produce a certain kind of mass, then yes, theoretically." Edward fell back into his chair at the Robotnik's reply. "Why do you ask?"

"The monster that attacked my machines in Deppen has purportedly stolen and subsumed a Chaos Emerald and used it to increase its body mass and grow a skeletal structure for its right arm."

"Oh dear." The Robotnik whispered.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Forget about it. We can't take five of them on a good day, there's no way we can take that army." The squirrel looking through the binoculars twitched and lowered them.

"And there's no way to get around them." The squirrel responded. Her companion, a rabbit with scars covering the exposed parts of her arm, shook her head.

"Then we'll just have to stay behind them. We couldn't do much to them even if we died doing it." The rabbit patted her friend on the back instinctively. "Come on. It's not your fault. Besides, everything we know says the Mobians have seen worse." The squirrel took one last glance back at the wall of purple-armored machines, before turning back.

"Come on." She said. "Let's tell the others.

OOOOOOOOOO

The dawning sun illuminated the village of Deppen as peoples from numerous countries and species assembled in the same square where the demon called Chaos had first shown itself to the world. An echidna talked to a young fox in grim tones, interrogating him about the mundane battery brought in case a magical one failed.

"Look, I haven't tested it, I've never done something like this-" Tails started.

"Will it fly?" Knuckles asked.

"I can't be sure-"

"Will it?" Knuckles leaned forward to punctuate the question.

"yes." Tails squeaked out. Knuckles nodded.

"Good. All we need it to do is reach Armenz. Sonia will be going with you to retrieve the scepter. I only need you to take care of the plane."

"Why Sonia?" Manic asked.

"First, she thinks before she acts. Second, she knows French, unlike the rest of you. Finally, I can trust her to stay focused without me around." Knuckles said, counting off the reasons on his fingers. Knuckles turned to face the rest of the freedom fighters, who had arranged themselves in something resembling ordered ranks. Every single one remained grimly silent. "As many of you already know, two days ago we were attacked by something that could only be described as a demon. We thought we had destroyed it using this:" Knuckles held up one of the glowing rings.

"We didn't." Knuckles continued. "This monster, this Chaos, is still alive. Our one condolence is that it doesn't want us. Therefore, if you see it do not try to fight it. Call the nearest triplet if it attacks you but be cautious: we only have a few of these rings, and this Chaos is far too dangerous for any other weapon we have. You are dismissed."

Knuckles turned and walked off to separate himself from his soldiers.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sonia glanced down from the plane as it sped over the land. The rush of green underneath her made her queasy, however, so she straightened herself up in her seat and took the time to study the plane's pilot.

Sonia personally found the idea of a kid that young, especially without education, making something that most of the world's scientists had problems with completely absurd. Granted, the main problem had always been proper power sources, and Tails had supposedly been using a Chaos Emerald, but that only led to the further absurdity of a kid finding a mythological artifact in what amounted to little more than an ancient trash pile. When she thought about it, though, she realized that most other people wouldn't have looked for something so powerful in such a location.

Sonia's mind wandered farther, thinking about what could have happened if Chaos had hunted down the emerald while the rebellion was still in Knothole or worse, when Tails was in Edmund's-Burrow. Sonia shivered at the thought of what Chaos could have done to such a densely packed city.

"Are you cold?" Tails asked.

"What? No." Sonia shook her head even though Tails wasn't looking behind him. "I just got caught up thinking about things."

"Like what?"

"Nothing important." Sonia said. They stayed silent for a few minutes before Tails finally asked.

"Are you scared of Chaos?"

"Yes." Sonia admitted.

"Really?" Tails asked in a voice showing how much he had hoped for a different answer.

"Don't worry yourself." Sonia said. "I was just over-thinking things. I can handle it if it attacks us." The fox nodded. The tense silence that followed remained for the rest of the plane's flight to Armenz as Sonia's thoughts twisted around themselves even more.

They touched down on a flat plain of grass, with Armenz barely in sight. Sonia left Tails with the plane and walked to the city, nervousness mounting. Even in Mobius City she had had her brothers there to guide her if she slipped, and even her brief jaunts on her own had ended up finding Manic's familiar face. For the first time in her life, she was on her own. Could she do this?

Sonia clutched the ring case hidden in her pockets. _I will not be weak._

Sonia moved in a daze through the city streets, people and machines ignoring her as she moved towards the building where the jeweled scepter was being kept. She knew that Chaos would be there too, no matter what happened. The double doors opened inward before Sonia realized she had moved her hands. She walked into a lobby that might have once been special, adorned with imitation Roman columns and fancy metal chairs.

She barely flinched as Chaos exploded through the far wall, larger than before and with both hands containing a skeletal arm that joined together inside of the demon's torso.

Sonia flicked open the ring case and grabbed at the glowing ring inside. The gemstone around her necked left out a soft ringing as it filled with pink light. Chaos attacked.

Sonia felt the power flowing through her, bending reality around her, and she _knew_ she would not find the speed to dodge the massive arm that Chaos was throwing towards hers, and let instinct take over. When she was with her foster mother, she had been taught to defend herself without ever needing a weapon. She brought her hands on top of each other in front of her, catching Chaos's fist with her palm. The wind shook from the impact as Chaos was brought to a sudden halt.

Before all of the force from the punch could go into her Sonia shifted the watery limb aside with one hand and ducked inside Chaos's reach to punch with her other. The tiny hand drove straight through Chaos's head, briefly revealing something like a purple brain before Chaos fell apart. Instinct took hold and Sonia quickly stepped away and circled around, keeping distance between her and her opponent.

Chaos began to reassemble, and then let itself collapse. The water that made up its body spread out to cover the floor of the room at an unnatural speed. Sonia jumped atop one of the metal chairs and was rewarded by hearing the legs snap as the water cut through them. She jumped farther back as Chaos pulled the water back in and reassembled itself. Sonia charged forward and punched straight, thinking to catch the monster off guard. A shield of multicolored light blocked her attack, and it disappeared an instant before Chaos flicked out its arm, sending Sonia flying into a Roman column.

_I felt that._ Sonia thought, yet she knew it hadn't hurt anywhere near as much as it should have. She pushed herself away moments before Chaos struck, and ducked in to deliver a punch to the back of its head. The blow found its mark and Chaos collapsed again, prompting Sonia to jump atop a fallen chair in case it flooded the room again.

Chaos reformed quickly instead and flung itself through the air. Sonia jumped away moments before it hit her, rolling to avoid the monster as it rebounded off a Roman column. Chaos pushed off of a second column and left a gouge as it slid across the floor to slow itself. Sonia ducked in to attack but was blocked by another multicolored shield. Sonia dodged instantly and Chaos's attack cut through empty air, giving Sonia time to duck in and attack again.

Sonia jumped as Chaos flooded the room, and dodged as it reformed to throw itself at her. She waited as it hit the floor and then charged, strafing around it to punch through the back of its head before it could generate a shield. The monster collapsed into a puddle, and the puddle fled under the building's doors. The doors shattered inwards to reveal a squadron of purple-plated robots. Sonia clenched her fist as she looked at them.

_I still have some power left._

OOOOOOOOOO

Knuckle's head darted around the grassy hills. He had been searching for hours, and his chances of finding it were as low as he could conceive, yet he was certain he was drawing nearer with every circle he made. His eyes finally alighted on the multicolored piece of paper and he dashed forward to pick it up. Something about the card had alarmed his late grandfather, and Knuckles was a fool to have ignored it earlier.

The bizarre collage of hearts, lips, and animalistic features told Knuckles nothing, but he did see a note saying 'Thanks for the Emerald'. Any further investigation of the gaudy card was cut off as the whine of the Tornado's engine came closer and the wind around Knuckles went into a frenzy, forcing him to secure the card in a pocket.

The plane landed on a relatively flat patch of grass a little way away from him. Sonia climbed out of the back of the plane and approached him as Tails immediately began checking the plane. Sonia stopped in front of him and saluted.

"Mission failed." She said. Knuckles nodded grimly.

"Did you encounter Chaos?" He asked.

"Yes. It had changed significantly since the last fight with it, displaying several new abilities. And I would like a better place to discuss them, as well as other matters."

"Very well then." Knuckles said.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sleet and Dingo turned their heads as Espio walked up to the fire, the light illuminating his purple scales.

"What do you want?" Sleet asked.

"I am here to inform you that I have finally completed my reconnaissance. I will be finishing my mission tomorrow."

"I see." Sleet replied. "Well, guess we'll see how you do." Espio nodded curtly and then walked away from the fire, his image swallowed by the dark of the night.


	27. Chapter 26

**Author Note: An update! If you look back you'll see that I changed the species of one OC, Scrat Larkin, to be a weasel. As for this chapter, it's mostly focused on catching up with minor characters, some of whom haven't appeared since Act 3! Anyway, hope you enjoyand _please_ give me reviews so I can know what I'm doing wrong or right.**

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Chapter 26

_ "They're so sweet." The girl said, rubbing the belly of the chubby fairy. "I think I'm one of the few people they're not scared of _Amy"

Amy's eyes blinked open. She had been dreaming she realized. She rubbed her face to clear up her blurred vision.

"Are you awake yet? It's nearly ten." Amy turned and looked at the speaker.

"Oh. Hi Yona."

"Hey. We haven't talked in while." Yona said.

"There hasn't been much to talk about." Amy said, shrugging her shoulders.

"What about the monster?"

"It's a monster. What else is there to say?"

"I don't know. Where did it come from, what is it trying to do." Yona said. Amy glared daggers at her. Yona suddenly became very serious something Amy had only glimpsed a few times. "Seriously, what' wrong?"

"Nothing." Amy muttered, finally getting off the ground. "I just haven't felt like talking."

"If you say so." Yona said, turning around and walking away.

OOOOOOOOOO

Espio crawled through the grass, the familiar route he had taken to spy before suddenly becoming the road to his first assassinations. His skin tingled with anticipation and fear, and it took all of his mental will to keep his scales their same green and brown. What waited for him at the end of this trail? Would his be one of the assassinations that went onto legend, silent and skillful without a trace he'd ever been there? Of course not. He had already let one of his _targets_ see him, and even let the hedgehog get away.

There wouldn't be any mistakes this time. He would kill these monsters, and by spilling their blood free the child army they had gathered to themselves.

OOOOOOOOOO

Scrat's head twitched and he glanced behind him.

"What?" Dalin asked.

"Something bad is coming." Scrat said, keeping his voice low.

"What makes you say that?"

"We haven't seen a single robot in the past two days. This is one of the most powerful empires in the world and we're maybe four hundred kids-"

"I'm not a kid." Dalin said defensively. Scrat's underlying nervousness exploded into sheer panic.

"What do you think you are then, some kind of legendary mercenary? We weren't trained to fight, we don't have any cause or country or fat warlord with-a-lot-of-money. We are _kids_, on the run, from a man who conquers countries in a couple of days. The only reason we're still alive after the last fight is because a frikkin' _demon_ showed up. We are doomed." Scrat moaned and curled into a ball, leaving Dalin alone to think. The echidna shook his head and slowly backed away from his high-strung companion to find someone calmer to talk to.

OOOOOOOOOO

Espio nearly lost focus when he looked up from the ground to see that the village of Deppen was already in sight. A few child soldiers were half-heartedly guarding the village limits. He kept his head low, knowing they weren't looking for and wouldn't recognize a chameleon crawling along the ground into their camp.

OOOOOOOOOO

Jet lay back on the pier, his feet still hanging over the edge.

"Man, I'm gonna' kill my girlfriend when I get back." He moaned. Big looked over from where he was sitting with a frightened look. "Not literally." Jet replied, waving off the cat. "Next time she says to go somewhere I am just not listening. Wars, demons- ugh. There is no way this is better than back home. At least I meant to come here." Jet nodded towards Big, who blinked awkwardly before nodding in agreement. "I have to admit I feel kinda' bad roping you into this. I mean, you don't look like a kid." Big turned and gave him a strange smile.

"It's okay. I've seen worse." He said before turning back to his fishing.

OOOOOOOOOO

Espio nimbly crawled up the house's walls, fingers quickly finding each and every handhold to take him to the roof. Once he reached it, he quickly glanced around the village, blocking out the missing fountain-top and buildings damaged from the demon's attack. Would the demon stand in his path again? _You failed before it attacked._ It took all of Espio's will to suppress the flash of yellow, but the reminder was worth his time. As Master Mil-Lah had said, humility was the greatest virtue. That is what set him apart from the monsters he hunted.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Demons, magic, 'Chaos Emeralds'…" Bartleby started. "My dad said war was hell but I never thought it'd be so literal." He looked down at his cup of cheap tea and swirled it around, hoping that it would magically change its taste.

"I didn't know your dad was a soldier." Antoine said, giving his friend an odd look. Because of their abilities to, among other things, speak French and fake sincerity, the two nobleman had managed to get themselves an unused shack and pay for some tea. They were both fairly certain they had been ripped off both times, but it was better than having to squat with the gang scum that were part of the rebel army.

"He wasn't, but he got involved with some military projects in Neworld when he was younger."

"Ah." Antoine said, taking a moment to sip his cup of tea and regret it. "I think it's interesting in its own way though. I mean, after it's all said and done I wouldn't want to say 'Oh yes, I was alive during all that. What did I do? Oh, nothing, just sat around and let someone else be the hero'." He let his eyes meet his friend's again, and found Bartleby to have quite a quizzical expression.

"Hero?" Bartleby asked. Antoine looked away hurriedly

"Well, it was the first word that came to mind… and…" Antoine narrowed his eyes and turned back. "If I'm getting labeled as a rebel anyway then I want it to be my choice."

OOOOOOOOOO

Espio finally spotted one of his targets, the green hedgehog, walking between houses. Espio suppressed the bubble of rage as he remembered actually leaving the rebel behind. The chameleon began following the rebel carefully, remembering how he had been able to find Espio the first time they met. He would have to be extra careful tracking this opponent. Espio slipped to the house's edge and climbed down, following the green hedgehog on the ground.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic heaved a heavy sigh as he walked over to the shed he and his siblings were currently sleeping in. It seemed ironic, but having to find a safe place in the abandoned houses of Mobius City seemed like easy living compared to this, not even taking everything about the war into account.

"Hey." Manic said as he greeted his siblings and sat down by them. No sooner had he done so than they heard the thump of something heavy falling on the shed.

"What?" Sonic said, and the three stood up to investigate. Sonic and Sonia went to the entrance of the shed and looked up onto the roof while Manic hung back to see what happened. A sudden chill ran down his spine, and the answer came to him in the form of a scaly hand wrapping around his mouth and a keen-edged knife pressing up against his throat.

"I am here." A voice said, its English tinged with a foreign accent. Sonic's and Sonia's gaze fell down to see Manic being held by a figure the color of the shed's stone walls. The figure's skin seemed to crawl, before slowly fading to purple. The first thing that struck the siblings was that it was uncovered save the few translucent straps holding on its spare knife and throwing stars and tiny vials of liquid. Its head swooped back like a pyramid and came to a point at the small horn on the chameleon's face.

"The ninja." Sonia whispered.

"Try to alert anyone and he dies." The ninja said.

"What do you want then?" Sonic asked.

"Drink this. Both of you." The ninja said taking his hand off Manic's mouth to toss a small jar to Sonic.

"Don't bother." Manic said. "It's poison, he's trying to make you look like you committed suicide, and then he's gonna' kill me anyways. Just grab a gun and shoot him now." Manic ignored the heavy breathing of his assailant to glance at him. "Seriously, you really need to get better plans."

"Are you so hungry for blood that you will even take your own?" the ninja hissed. The knife pressed closer to Manic's neck, almost starting to draw blood. Manic turned back to his siblings.

"You might want to stay clear," he said. "I hear arterial sprays are particularly messy." Sonia stared in shock.

"Be quiet." The ninja barked as he pulled Manic into a stranglehold, his scales blossoming into deep black. Manic's eyes widened with fear as he felt the knife draw the first few drops of blood. Sonic's fist clenched around the jar of poison but Sonia put her hand on his.

"Careful," She said. "He's ruthless, trained from birth to kill."

"Very skilled. Able to take on three unarmed, teenage hedgehogs using everything in his arsenal." Sonic said. "A born killer."

"Do you think you are better?" The ninja said. "You use children as your soldiers. Make them fight to bring about anarchy in the place of a stable system."

"We're not the ones shooting at children." Sonia said. "Or force feeding them poison or slitting their throats." The ninja quivered.

Suddenly he screamed in rage and threw Manic into his siblings and ran past, disappearing from sight. The three turned to look where he had run to, Manic rubbing the cut on his neck.

"Not a born killer after all." Manic muttered answering the unasked question.

OOOOOOOOOO

Espio stumbled as he ran through the village, ignoring the shocked glances of rebel soldiers and natives alike. He didn't stop running until he had left Deppen far behind him and only then did he let himself collapse on the ground and his scales to flame pure yellow. Only with the greatest effort was he able to rein in his mind and clear his thoughts. He berated himself with the voice of his master._ This triumvirate is clever and blessed with silver tongues_,_ my dear Espio. They persuaded an entire army to follow them, of course they knew how to rephrase happenings to make themselves appear righteous. What matters most is what they will cause, not what they say they intend. And they can only bring chaos._ Espio used both hands to push himself off the ground and turned to stalk back towards his camp, his scales a pure purple. When he arrived Sleet and Dingo were as he had left them, asleep on the ground. He walked past and sat down to meditate on the day's event, not hearing the two hunters' whispers.

"Failed."

"Yep."

OOOOOOOOOO

Knuckles swore.

"Why didn't you idiots call anybody?" He asked.

"Did they mention the part that he'd slit my throat if they did?" Manic asked. Knuckles grunted and grabbed his head in pain.

"You're lucky-"

"To still be alive. Yeah, we know." Sonic replied. "But we didn't have a lot of choices."

"He may change his mind." Knuckles said. "You three are going to have to stay under constant guard until the ninja is dead. _Constant_ constant." The three each gave him the same look. "Even while you do _that_. We don't know where he'll reappear."

"No." Sonia said simply.

"Protecting your life is worth a little inconvenience." Knuckles replied curtly. "I'll let you choose who goes with but you need someone keeping watch."

"This is harassment."

"Maybe if this enemy couldn't turn invisible it wouldn't be necessary, but he can so it is!"

"Then maybe I should just surrender to Robotnik now if you're going to treat us like this." That forced Knuckles to pause, waiting nearly a minute before replying.

"They won't watch, but they'll still be in the room and they'll check everywhere first." Sonia grunted and walked away, with only a quick motion by Knuckles reminding to kids that she still needed to have an eye kept on her.

OOOOOOOOOO

Edward stared for a few seconds at the computer report. Chaos had just torn apart the attack force headed towards Deppen, and its last recorded movement said that it was coming towards him. The boy snorted and stood up from his seat. He hadn't wanted the situation to turn this way, but it seemed he would have to deal with Chaos himself. Fortunately he had already begun assembling machinery for such a situation and with the Chaos Emerald the Robotnik had sent him he would have both the perfect bait and the perfect weapons. With the transport he had "requisitioned" he would be able to reach Deppen in little time, so short that he could wait till tomorrow to leave.


	28. Chapter 27

**Author Note: Hey all! I actually updated! After much soul-searching and procrastination I've realized that I failed at planning this story and let it get too far from the original concept. I'm not certain anymore whether I want to write all the many sequels I planned, even after how many years I spent planning them and how much trimming I've done, but I will finish this one. I've made mistakes along the way, introducing character that didn't add to the story and not using them, but I am certain of what needs to happen. And so, here is the next chapter, and a final battle against Chaos is prepared.**

* * *

**Chapter 27**

The wheels of the transport roared beneath Edward Gareth Goering as he road towards Deppen. Usually the transport ran under its own intelligence, but Edward had overrode it from his position on the back. The speed at which he forced the transport to move would eventually cause it to start breaking down, but he would not need a quick transport when he returned in triumph.

Edward was shaken out of his thoughts by an explosion in front of the truck, forcing him to slow the truck to a stop so he could investigate what was happening. Before he could do anything though, a ring of squirrels with aged assault rifles emerged from the surrounding forest and encircled the truck, each one making sure their rifle was pointed straight at him. To his right he saw their leader, a girl in a blue vest, step forward.

"Why hello, Princess Sally." Edward said, his voice drenched with sarcastic geniality. "It's so good to have you once again interrupt my affairs."

"Get out of the truck, Eggman." Sally replied, readjusting the gun in her arms for emphasis. Edward flinched at the demeaning nickname derived from both his initials and his girth.

"Please," He sneered. "We both know you won't kill me. Besides which, I clearly have the advantage." Edward pushed a button on his data pad and the truck released his mount from its securings. From the squirrels' view the box-like platform Edward had been sitting on top of unfolded to reveal a metallic, bipedal pod with Edward in the cockpit, Edward readjusted the machine to face Sally, pushing another button to slide a reinforced glass dome over his head.

"Everyone, move back!" Sally barked, furiously backpedalling away from the pod while trying to keep her aim on it. Edward laughed as he watched the squirrels antics.

"You knew I was coming and where to ambush me but didn't check to see if I was armed. Your technical skills never cease to amaze me." Edward added the last line with his usual brand of sarcasm.

"Don't underestimate me." Sally warned, trying to inject as much confidence as she could into the threat.

"Trust me I don't." Edward said. "I know you only had three hand grenades left since your last operation, one of which you must have used to stop the truck, and with that few munitions you couldn't really hope to destroy whatever I brought, meaning you were planning on something else to do it for you. And, knowing you, you failed to realize that I came out here so that I could _destroy_ Chaos!"

As if on cue, the monstrous being made of water rose up behind Edward, oversized arms hanging to its side. Chaos lifted an arm into the air, but as it brought the arm down Edward's machine twisted to face it and jumped back,leaving the back of the truck to be demolished. Sally took cover behind a tree as metal shrapnel was thrown through the air, knowing her comrades had retreated as soon as the monster made its appearance. They all knew she would be the only one to stay behind and see it through to the end.

A long box hanging from the back of Edward's machine rotated to the top, covering the entire right side. "FIRE!" Edward roared, needlessly pointing an arm forward as the box launched a missile straight into Chaos's head, shattering it and making the monster collapse into a puddle.

"Hah." Edward chuckled, exaggerating so that Sally would hear him. "Nothing can compare to the power of my intellect."

"What about your uncle?" Sally called back as she put more trees between her and the war machine, afraid of anything that could so effortlessly take down the monster called Chaos. She stopped as she heard an unnatural scream, and turned to see a reformed Chaos facing down Edward once again. Edward calmly launched another missile at it, only to watch in shock as Chaos blocked it with a wall of shimmering colors. Edward tried to put the machine into retreat only for it to become caught in between the trees. It was simple work for Chaos to walk forward and punch a hole into the back of Edward's machine, pulling out what Sally thought was a red gem before being forced to cover her eyes from the bright light it emitted.

OOOOO

_Fear. Anger. HATRED._

_OOOOO_

Manic looked up in interest as he saw the rabbit come running into Deppen. He wasn't suppose to be so close to the outskirts, but he felt certain that the ninja wasn't a threat anymore. Both of the kids assigned to guard him raised their weapons, mistaking "chameleon" for "shape-shifter".

"Hey, put your guns down, if she wanted to kill me she would have shot already." Manic said. Though they were a bit bothered by his reasoning, the kids listened, and lowered their tracers. The rabbit stopped a bit more than meter away, breathing through her nose, and standing straight to hide her exhaustion.

"Are you the Mobian rebels?" She asked. No matter how serious she was, the lighter accent of her English clearly marked her Armetrian origin.

"Nah, we're the Tsarminian-" Manic began sarcastically, but the rabbit cut him off.

"I don't have time for games, smart-ass, lives are at stake." she barked out, glaring at him. Manic shrunk back a little at her reaction, before turning around and calling out.

"Someone get Knuckles."

"We can't wait for someone else, the monster could be-" The rabbit tried to pressure Manic, and as soon as she said 'monster' his eyes widened and he grabbed her arm. Before she knew what was happening she was dragged along as the green hedgehog sped along the grasslands in the direction she had come from, his guards turning back to warn the other freedom fighters.

OOOOO

Sonic swore as he looked around in vain. "Knucklehead sure picked a good time to disappear." Everyone had begun looking as soon as Manic had called out, and had missed Manic's hasty departure in the growing worry over Knuckles's sudden disappearance.

"Then we do this without him." Sonia said. "He can grumble later."

"Can't believe you're saying that." Sonic said as they turned and started to leave the village.

"Manic's my brother too." she said.

"Still can't believe it. How many come with us?" He asked. The question made Sonia glance back at the crowd of kids that was following them, and realized how disastrous it could be if they all came.

"Twenty, no more." she said as the passed the last building of Deppen. Many of the kids stopped following immediately, some kept coming, and while Sonia didn't count she at least felt confident that they had left enough behind to guard the village. As they began to pick up their pace with Sonic trying his hardest not to run, and still outpacing them, Sonia hoped they reached Manic in time.

OOOOO

The squirrels ran as they never had before. They were no strangers to real danger, and had spent years fighting the machines of the Robotnik and the megalomania of the one they called 'Eggman' for the sake of their morale. All of that, though, paled before the horror of the demon. None of them were willing to face the monstrosity, and when they saw a hedgehog running towards them they tried to warn him, but he did not slow.

It was in that moment that Chaos appeared bursting through the ground with an animalistic roar. The liquid creature had lost its unbalanced appearance, and a scythed tail with a red emerald at the base of its skeletal inside, whipped about behind it. Lightning danced across Chaos's arms, dazzling Manic as he pulled out a ring case and grabbed its contents.

Manic had talked to his siblings, trying to glean what the affect of the rings had been like and, tried to prepare himself for the rush. Instead, he was caught unaware as his logic dissolved in a rush of emotion and senses, and Manic felt himself pulled to a single position of the present. Chaos was before him and he had come to defeat it.

"Get behind me!" He roared to the squirrels, his voice filled with the power inside of him. Chaos pulled back an arm, ready to charge and punch, and the green hedgehog responded by slamming his palm down into the ground. The energy in him flowed down and split the earth in front of him, traveling straight towards Chaos, ending with a shard of stone rising from the ground and spearing Chaos through the chest. "Its time to finish this." Manic said, readying his power for a second attack. And then, to his shock, Chaos let loose a sound like gurgling, and he could hear words in the flow of water.

_You can't._ He thought it said. Chaos's chest constricted and shattered the stone shard, and Chaos straightened itself and sank into the ground. Manic twisted around expecting the demon to try and catch him unaware, but all he saw were awestruck squirrels and a stone faced rabbit. Everyone stood there for minutes, waiting for the fight to resume, but Chaos never returned. They were still like that when Manic's siblings and the freedom fighters they had brought found them.

OOOOO

Sleet looked over at Dingo. The two of them stood before the town of Deppen, wearing their weapons and sick of waiting.

"Are you ready?" Sleet asked. Dingo looked at him oddly.

"Didn't you ask that before we left?" Dingo wondered. Sleet shook his head at Dingo's lack of dramatic sense.

"Dingo, you are such a retard."

"You should see my son." Dingo replied. Sleet had heard Dingo say some surprisingly dumb things before, but not that he had a kid.

"You had a kid?" Sleet asked, hoping no poor child had to suffer Dingo as a father.

"Yeah, back when we split up after those special forces guys rejected us." Dingo explained.

"What happened?" Sleet asked.

"Wife wouldn't shut up." Dingo replied absently, scratching his nose. Sleet grimaced and chose to return his concentration to the mission.

"C'mon Dingo, let's show these kids what we're made of."


	29. Declaration of a Story's Death

**Author's Note: This story is dead. I don't like saying this, but I began making this story the summer before my eighth grade, and I'm now a freshman in college. This draft of the story was begun in my _high school_ freshman english class, and has changed far too much over these five years to have survived. Here is why I proclaim it dead:**

**1) Lack of interest. Continuing this has become too much of a chore, and I simply can't say to myself it deserves to be continued.**

**2)New and old stories. As this one waited, I have thought up newer, fresher stories, and breathed life and vigor back into the tales I have always wished to write.**

**3) Ending the obsession. For a long time, this story was my only real focus in life, but it could never come to anything. It's time I left that behind.**

**4) It's a mess. I was a beginning writer when I made this, and it is simply too complicated, with too many characters and plot lines for me to handle. I am moving back to simpler fare until I get better**

**Simply: I don't want to finish this. But, since I'm not an asshole, I'm giving you not just everything I've written up until now, but also an abridged form of the rest of the story. It is possible I'll come back to finish this, but not likely. It is possible I might remake this, but not likely. It is possible I will write one of the many sequels I planned, but for now I'll set my eyes on my new stories, and let this one rest in peace. It was fun while my drive lasted, but now I've changed too much to write the same way I did when I started.**

**I hope I don't leave you too disappointed.**

* * *

Chapter 28

Knuckles slowed his pace as he reached the outskirts of the city. He didn't know what city it was, but at this point he didn't care. His grand-father had done something to him, and that change had led him here. He desperately wanted to return to the revolutionary army that he had spent so long waiting for, but with the monster called Chaos on the loose he had no choice. People and the policing machines gave him strange looks as he passed through the streets, but he ignored them, feeling the at he was getting closer with every step.

The bar's patrons twisted their heads around as the doors slammed open and light poured in. It was an old establishment, made of wood with low ceilings and creaky chairs. The red echidna scanned the room quickly before speaking. His voice was even and firm, but the tone of menace was unmistakeable.

"There's a mouse with a jewelry case in here. They have something that doesn't belong to them. A good man died because of that." The bar grew quite. Its inhabitants turned from their drinks to face the speaker that had made so brazen an entrance, even leaving the door wide open for the cop-bots to see. Everyone except one mouse, dressed in a long brown coat and a wide brimmed hat that failed to cover her ears. She kept her focus on the class of wine in her hands, quite purposefully ignoring the echidna's attempt to get attention attention. Knuckles looked down, eyes falling upon the briefcase next to her chair.

"Problem, comrade?" The white-furred mouse said, her tsarminian accent thick and obvious. In the next instant the wine glass was out of her hand and flying through the air.

Without thinking Knuckles batted it away and sent in crashing against the floor, but the mouse had already run to a door in the back of the bar. Knuckles was quick to follow, not slowing for chairs or people as he pursued his new enemy. The door stopped him for a second as he ran up against it, but a swift kick broke it down. Beyond it was a small room with wine racks lining the walls, and a door the mouse seemed desperate to pick the lock of.

"Give it up." Knuckles said, walking towards her.

"What are you even doing here." She said standing and turning to face.

"I already said that."

"You were quite vague. What led you to this bar anyways?" Knuckles paused as he thought of a way to describe it, but it was too late. The doorknob exploded and Knuckles involuntarily flinched back, giving the mouse the lead up the stairs of the building. Knuckles followed, but when he reached the door at the top it was wide open and the next was tightly shut with no sign of the mouse. He moved to the door across the room, but a blow on the back of his head sent him spinning.

He turned around with a wide punch that didn't come close to hitting the mouse. As soon as his arm was past her she moved in again, fighting with a level of skill and precision Knuckles had never seen. She easily dodge and deflected Knuckles own clumsy punches, and landing blow after blow on his body, even if he barely felt them. Filling with rage, Knuckles tried to charge her, only for her to step out of the way and leave him crashing into the peeling white paint of the empty room.

"Stay there or I shoot." Knuckles turned to see the mouse leveling a tiny handgun at him. It wouldn't have much force, but a shot to the head or the heart would still be lethal. Knuckles calmly reached down to his side and pulled a much heftier pistol of his own. His departure had been impulsive and he had travelled light, but he had the discipline to always stay armed.

"I've seen worse." He calmly said, leveling the gun at her with both hands, carefully aiming.

"You haven't. Trust me." The mouse said icily.

"The Robotnik's enforcers, assassination machines, demons... yeah, I have."

"Stop lying, meathead. A thug like you couldn't take down His machi-" The mouse paused, squinting to focus on something. "The cloak. The Mobian Royal Guard. You're one of the rebels." Knuckles didn't answer. "We're on the same side, comrade."

"This isn't about the Robotnik." Knuckles growled. "Its about you, what you stole from the old echidna, and how he died because of it." The mouse was struck by the echidna's words.

"You're chasing me for that? You gave up your revolution for a bauble?" Without even looking the mouse's left hand snaked inside of her coat and pulled out an emerald, maybe and inch tall and with an odd cut, held between two fingers as the back of her hand faced Knuckles. "You wasted your time for this?" Knuckles gazed in awe at the tiny emerald. He could somehow feel the power and... something else, anti-power perhaps, inside of it. The emerald glimmered.

"You've got a Chaos Emerald." Knuckles said.

"And now your accusing me of fairy tails!" The mouse barked. It was almost believable, but just ever so slightly forced. Knuckles glanced to the side before returning his focus to her.

"Chaos is coming. I can't let you have either of those emeralds."

"Take the bauble if you must." The mouse snarled flicking it through the air for Knuckles to catch in one hand, still keeping the gun pointed at her. "I can't go causing problems."

"Now the other one, in the brief case. Purple, if i'm not mistaken." That caused the mouse to frown.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that. It's the only thing that Sears will take as proof of Tsarminia's alliance." She said. Knuckles snarled and glared at her. "You're not alone in your war against the Robotnik, comrade, but the U.F. And Tsarminia have been enemies for decades, and they need good reason to trust the other."

"I already told you this about more than the Robotnik." Knuckles said cooly, griping the tiny emerald tight in his hand as he kept the weight of the gun up with only one hand. "There's a monster out there and its looking for that emerald, and as long as you have it the monster will hunt you down."

"Well," The mouse said, grinning slyly. "I enjoy a good chase." With those words her seemingly empty hand through a bomb to the floor. It exploded in a cloud of smoke that stung Knuckles's eyes and forced them closed as he tried to give chase. By the time he had felt his way to the door and made it to the rooftop, he found no sight of the mouse, and there was no easy way down.

Knuckles put his gun away and punched the roof in frustration, ignoring the crater he left behind. He had gotten what he came for, but another Chaos Emerald had gotten away from him, and Chaos could get its hands on it at anytime. What was he to do now?

OOOOO

**This is the end**

OOOOO

And Rouge did lose the emerald to chaos, and the purple Chaos Emerald gave Chaos the emotion of Mirth, insane, nihilistic mirth. When Sonic and his siblings returned to Deppen with the freedom fighters of Acorn, they found that Sleet and Dingo had left a slaughter behind. Amy Rose's last innocence was shattered as her friend Yona died in her arms.

There was no time for mourning. Chaos had four emeralds, and was too powerful for anyone to stop. Tikal told Knuckles how to seal it, but he was needed to find the demon.

Espio's will was finally broken, and he refused to continue his mission, making Sleet and Dingo turn on him and throw him into a river. The bounty hunters encountered Chaos and tried to make a deal with it, but were instead possessed, becoming avatars of Sorrow and Anger.

The final battle was in the appropriately named city of Sanguinare. Sonic, Manic, and Sonia used the last three rings to fight Chaos and the possessed Sleet and Dingo, while Knuckles tried to arrive in time.

We saw Sleet and Dingo's past as child soldiers in Western Neworld, only ever having each other to trust, and treated like scum compared to their commander's favorite soldier, a young man with mismatched eyes.

Edward the Eggman was also in Sanguinare, and in a final confrontation Sally shot a bullet straight into the machines missile launcher, destroying it and one of Edward's arms.

During the battle, Chaos destroyed the earth and the six superpowered combatants fell down into the Tunnel Sleet had made up, but actually existed, conecting Thran and Mobius. As Sonic found himself about to fall prey to Chaos, Espio arrived to repent with martyrdom, buying sonic time to escape, but his distraction was enough for the day to be won.

After the battle, Rouge informed the Mobian freedom fighters that The United Federation had discovered from a third party that the Robotnik had created a new type of war machine that would give him command of the seas and allow him to quickly subjugate the whole world. She returns to Neworld, taking Jet, Big, and Bartleby with her.

Sally and the freedom fighters of Acorn decided to return to their home country, following the escaped Eggman, and Antoine went with, intent to not stand on the side lines.

The freedom fighters of Mobius went into the tunnel, holding the four Chaos Emeralds, ready to finish the fight.

Espio stayed behind with Sleet and Dingo, quietly excepting the three's transferral to one of the Robotnik's prison camps on an isolated island.

Act 5: Freedom's March

The Robotnik spoke thus: "My machines failed because they could not think. The hunters failed because they could not reason. But you: You are neither machine nor living being." Thus, he released the "sentient machines", Gamma-Omega and Beta-Espilon, to kill the three children of Queen Aleena.

On the other side of the tunnel, the freedom fighters are forced to begin the final campaign on their own, Knuckles having gone on ahead to insure the Master Emerald's safety, and to heed a warning about a cataclysmic imbalance in the world. In the end, the role of leader fell on Amy Rose's shoulders, and they joked that she was "Madam General".

Meanwhile, in Mobius City itself, Queen Aleena organized a daring assassination of the Robotnik, calling upon the stealth of Ferrel and the lethality of Nack "Fang" Larkin, weasel sniper. The attack failed in the end, and Ferrel lost his life, but the Robotnik's first Master System for his network was destroyed, unfortunately, a second remained safely in hiding, and their wasn't even the slightest pause in the actions of machines made to be autonomous for all eternity.

In the city of Cowford, the Three were attacked by Gamma and Beta, but in the end Sonic was victorious. His resolve, and his appearance, awoke emotions deep within Gamma, and he was filled with doubt.

The Freedom Fighters finally arrived in Mobius City and met the Robotnik's forces in desperate battle. Moments before their mission could be completed, Gamma chose the path of justice, even if it might make a worse future, and confronted Beta, finally being forced to fight and kill her, and he tore the "core" from her chest.

The Freedom Fighters made their way to the Robotnik's final laboratory, and found his ultimate battleship, the _Egg Carrier_, waiting for them, in the end though, they were not strong enough, and found themselves captured, held in cells alongside Queen Aleena and an unfortunate Knuckles. Only Sonic, Manic, and Sonia escaped. Eggman held a chaos emerald with which to power the _Egg Carrier_ and the Master Emerald, and the warship was setting sail to put an end to the North's rebellion.

In the ruins of the laboratory, the three met the Oracle of Delphius, he who speaks prophecies in the words of the past, who had hidden away in Mobius City so he could ensure Aleena and the children's survival, and he gave the Three the encouragement needed to confront the Robotnik, asking: "Can you pilot a plane made by a ten year old?"

Aboard the _Tornado_, the Three flew through the _Egg Carrier's_ defenses and landed, drawing directly upon the power of the red, green, and blue emeralds to fight the Robotnik's guardian machines. They released their comrades and tasked them with breaking the Robotnik's control over his machines and disable them all, putting an end to the System. As the three approached the Robotnik's chamber, they were harried by the gunfire of the guardians, and Manic and Sonia stayed behind so Sonic could reach the Robotnik's chamber, safe from gunfire while climbing the ladder.

In an impossibly large chamber at the heart of the _Egg Carrier_, Sonic was confronted by Ivo Regoban, the Robotnik, who piloted his own variant of a black market war machine 40 feet tall and covered in weaponry, the machine he had named "Tyranus".

Sonic was fighting only for himself, not for any idea, belief, person, or reward, but simply out of his own, personal sense of right and wrong, and that he didn't care what happened after he had beaten the Robotnik. Such and idea was beyond the Robotnik's understanding, but he finally realized his own lust for power, and accepted the final battle against Sonic "Tyranny versus Anarchy."

Meanwhile, The freedom fighters long, hard fight had finally taken them to the control room of the _Egg Carrier_, where Tails finally thwarted the Robotnik's failsafes and lack of self-destruct features by over-downloading the archives of the entire System into every robot, paralyzing the entire System in an endless loading screen.

In the tiny moment of distraction when the Robotnik saw what Tails had done, Sonic delivered the critical blow, sending the _Tyranus_ to its knees and forcing the Robotnik to open its cockpit to escape, just as Manic and Sonia arrived. The Robotnik had one last trick though.

Calling upon the power of the Master Emerald, the Robotnik disabled all of the Three's Chaos fueled powers. Sonic attacked with tooth and claw at the Robotnik's gun-holding arm, only to discover it was a mechanical implant replacing the arm that Sonic's father had injured and infected with his dying struggle.

Manic disabled the arm with one of Espio's throwing stars that he had kept. The Robotnik tried to bluff, but Sonia easily detected it, allowing Sonic to deliver the final blows and, when taunted that all the world would see how Sonic finished the war, Sonic simply walked away, knowing his personal battle with the Robotnik had been won, and that the freedom fighters could have their way with him.

As everyone exited the _Egg Carrier_, the United Federation fleet arrived too late to help, but their guns did silence and sink the war machine into the ocean's depths.

The war was finished. The three siblings were crowned. Far from Mobius, Gamma returned a young rabbit girl to her mother. Knuckles returned to the shrine with the Master Emerald, while the others were divided among the nations of the world. A new, international peacekeeping body was formed: The Guardian Unity of Nations – G.U.N. In Mobius, a constitutional monarchy that gave all its power away to elected officials was put in place. The prospect of rebuilding a society was daunting, but they knew they had no other choice, no matter how hard it became.

OOOOO

**This is the End**


End file.
